It's a Broadly Boring Deal
It's a Broadly Boring Deal
Nearly a decade after the wild ride began, it's time to get back to basics
Toronto FC finally made a signing today.
Defensive midfielder Deybi Flores joins the club from Fehérvár Football Club of the Nemzeti Bajnokság. That’s Hungary, in case you aren’t an obsessive fan of third tier European leagues (or a lower league Football Manager fanatic).
A better measure here might be that he was in the Whitecaps organization from 2015 to 2017. He didn’t play a lot for the first team.
Now 27, Flores might be better positioned to be a regular MLS player. I mean, that was the Carl Robinson era in Vancouver and he made some questionable line-up changes throughout his time there, so who knows? He might have been ready for prime time when on the west coast only to be held back by Robinson. It’s possible.
What’s more likely (if we are staying positive here) is that TFC added an MLS Replacement Level guy. To replace an MLS Legend.
That legend, Michael Bradley, would probably have still been better than Flores in 2024, but he’s spared us the debate of when to move on from him by pulling the chute a tad early.
Replacing Bradley with a player so…average is telling. It’s especially telling in an off-season that is seeing a lot of bigger-named MLS players move around. These are players that the Bloody Big Deal era TFC would have absolutely been in the discussion to sign.
That they aren’t is further confirmation that the big bus has finally moved on to its parking lot in the sky. Toronto’s nine season run as a big spending*, chest thumping bully of MLS has come to an end. Whatever John Herdman is to bring to Toronto, it’s going to look different than what we’ve grown used to prior to last season’s disaster.
The Bloody Big Deal has been replaced with the Broadly Boring Deal.
That’s Ok.
See, Toronto FC is back to where it was in that 2011-2014 period, where it was fighting to just be a respectable MLS team. It’s only from that base of respectability that to can dream of more. I’m sure that there will be another big-spending era in Toronto. Probably sooner rather than later, but in 2024 we need to embrace the boring.
If 2024 TFC is dull then the season has been a success.
*Current contracts aside**
**That they are absolutely trying to shed.
My 2024 New Year’s resolution is to publish 20 Substacks a month. Call me out if I don’t hit the numbers!
First there was the 'bloody big deal', to be followed by 'un affare bello grosso'. Same ill-advised scheme to attract an ethnic fan base. These ultimately futile efforts followed on a similar 'affare bello grosso' by the Blizzard when they added Roberto Bettega to the team. To his credit, Bettega was a class-act on and off the field. Defoe was and is a nice guy, but hopeless in Toronto. Insigne might well be fine fellow, but he doesn't seem to have the character or desire needed to play a badly-needed leadership role. Italians are likely to defend his reputation by blaming the club for putting him in an impossible situation, thereby confirming their basic opinion of the quality of MLS.