Terrible Football Club. Again.

Only this time they aren't lovable

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Those of us that were around in the early days of Toronto FC tend to romanticise what it was like.

It was new and we were young(er). The game nights were fun — so fun. It truly was a time filled with memories that will last a lifetime. I can’t hear Johnny Cash’s Burning Ring of Fire without being instantly taken back to a blurry post game celebration at the Dufferin Gate, circa July 2007.

As I said, romanticise.

The one thing we grey hairs don’t talk about from back then, however, is the football. The football was dreadful. Beyond terrible. Google Andrea Lombardo*, if you weren’t there.

*Who was doing what he could and does not deserve to be the shorthand that he has become in TFC lore. But, he was in over his head. Lastly, have you scored against Aston Villa? No? Exactly.

It was a lot of aimless chasing, guys dribbling into coverage and no creation at all.

Terrible to watch. We invaded the pitch after TFC scored a late equalizer to draw New England on the final day of the season. We weren’t being ironic. We legit were that excited that we had saw them comeback because we had no expectations beyond a day out.

Flashforward 15 years. There is nothing romantic about what TFC is serving us up these days. No one will be talking wistfully about days past when recalling the 2023 season. It’s miserable in the stands. No one is singing Johnny Cash after games because this team is more likely to drive you to self-pity than they are to celebrations.

However, I can’t help but compare this team to that 2007 one. The reason I come back to that comparison is because the way they look on the pitch mirrors the expansion side.

This is a slow, aimless, passionless and directionless team that is mostly made up of young players that are often in over their head and veterans that don’t seem to care. There are exceptions: Ritchie has played out of his head and Oso is a club legend, to name a couple, but pretty much everyone else on this team needs to look in a mirror.

This point has been driven home over the past two games, after Bob Bradley was fired. Without the lightning rod of a single man to blame for the club’s troubles, it’s become abundantly clear that this club’s problems go far deeper than a coach. The culture of TFC 2023 is rotten to the core.

And, that starts with the player leadership — a group that has, for the most part, escaped the fan’s ire thus far. With Michael Bradley injured and in Europe getting his coaching badges, it’s also currently a leadership group that has no connection to the great TFC teams of the late 10s. It’s clearly a leadership group that speaks Italian as a first language.

I use the term “leadership” loosely here.

The game on Tuesday is a perfect illustration of how far that “leadership” can take this team. I’ll go as far as to say that it was the lowest point in club history. You had one DP hiding in Toronto with “an injury” (the scan didn’t show any issue, but Lorenzo Insigne decided not to travel anyway — one person told me he had come down with a case of “July-ites” and simply didn’t want to play in Orlando in the heat. The other DP went out and acted with the type of petulance you accept if the player is performing.

Not so much when they are complaining to The Athletic about TFC’s vaping policy.

There is nothing redeeming, fun or even particularly watchable about this club right now.

Nothing.

It won’t change until the “leadership” is gone.