A new coach. The same players. A hot start. A cold finish. No Wooden Spoon. No Audi MLS Cup Playoffs berth or Canadian Championship title, either.
Toronto FC’s first season under head coach John Herdman and final season with club president Bill Manning ended in the exact same spot each of the previous three had: outside of the playoffs looking in. Big changes were made before and during the season, and more big changes are likely coming afterward.
In we go:
Herdman was hired last summer, but didn’t actually take the reins until Decision Day of 2023. He then got himself a full offseason to implement his new game model and formation, while working in the role players he’d been furnished with in the transfer window.
And I’ll tell you what: There were some good moments, particularly in the first half of the year. Playing a 3-4-2-1 with Federico Bernardeschi as an inverted, endline-to-endline wingback? I mean, I honestly think that was a touch mad, but also brilliant. Bernardeschi was so damn good in that spot that I put him in my end-of-year Best XI, and I almost never put players from non-playoff teams into the Best XI.
He earned every bit of it. Sure, there were a few needless suspensions and a missed PK in the CanChamp final. Both were unfortunate. But I don’t think there was a DP in the league who worked harder for his team than Bernardeschi did this year, and given where both he and TFC were coming from in 2023, I think that’s a massive, unambiguous win.
There weren’t many others, though.
At the start of the year, I wrote that if Herdman rehabbed the usefulness of either Bernardeschi or Lorenzo Insigne, and developed a few young players, then it would be a successful season for TFC even if they didn’t make the playoffs.
Bernardeschi couldn’t have gone better. Insigne (4g/7a in only about 1350 minutes) could hardly have gone worse, and will go down as one of the biggest DP busts in league history.
Most disappointing, though, is none of the young players – neither the homegrowns nor No. 1 overall SuperDraft pick Tyrese Spicer – popped in any meaningful way.
For a team in one of the most talent-rich areas in North America, that’s a sin.
Manning bet comically large on Insigne and Bernardeschi, who combined to make more than every single MLS team except for Inter Miami. He bet big on Herdman, which came after he’d bet big on Bob Bradley, which came after he’d bet big on Chris Armas.
The writing for Manning was on the wall when ownership closed the purse after the arrival of the two Italians two summers ago. No third, high-priced DP coming this winter meant the Reds were going to have to make do with the guys already in the room, along with bargain bin additions like Matty Longstaff and Deybi Flores. Herdman was going to have to work some magic.
By July, with the Reds amid a nine-game winless skid, the magic was gone, and subsequently so was Manning. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment – ownership – parted ways with him, and in the months since, Rogers Communications reached an agreement to buy Bell’s 37.5% stake in MLSE. Which now means more changes are likely afoot.
"TFC is a complete rebuild … Everything is on the table," Keith Pelley, MLSE’s president and CEO, said in a recent interview. "We don't have a club identity, a club ethos, currently right now for TFC … I kind of realized that pretty quickly that it's kind of lost its way."
Pelley brought in Marco Neppe, a former Bayern Munich technical director, to conduct a "full organizational review."
I don’t think anyone still there will be sitting comfortably. Nor should they be.
- Bernardeschi (W/WB): I genuinely can’t believe how much this guy was willing to suffer as a two-way player for a lost cause.
- Jonathan Osorio (AM/CM): Did not have a good year, but still conducts himself the way a leader should.
- Richie Laryea (WB/FW): Another useful veteran who brings quality and club pride, but should be a complementary player, not a centerpiece.
- Longstaff (CM): Reliable two-way central midfielder.
- Flores (DM): Solid enough d-mid to do a job while the front office figures out how to fix the backline.
Look, I had some trouble getting to five because Bernardeschi is a guy to “build around.” Everyone else on the list is a guy to keep around and hopefully ease into a smaller role as talent is acquired or developed to replace them.
And that’s where Pelley’s comments about the club ethos come into play: it’s got to be made clear from the top down, whether it’s Herdman coaching or someone new (and yeah, it’s obvious "new coach" is an outcome that's on the table), that player development is a core part of the club’s ethos.
Look at how Miami won the Supporters’ Shield or how Columbus won last year’s MLS Cup and this year’s Leagues Cup. Homegrowns, draft picks, scrapheap guys… everyone played a role. Look at how Montréal, Dallas and Philly have made millions in the transfer market. Look at how Seattle and RBNY have built sustainable playoff teams with high floors. Look at how Colorado have climbed to respectability.
If that’s not the first page of the “full organizational review” then Neppe hasn’t done his job.
Once that philosophical part is done, the big decision comes down to whether or not there are the funds to buy out the final year of Insigne’s massive $15.4m guaranteed comp.
"I think with TFC we have to look at everything at this particular time, including Lorenzo Insigne and how he fits into the plans in this team long-term," Pelley said in that interview, and if what he’s implying actually happens – if the funds are there – then the Reds have two open DP slots and potentially three open U22 Initiative slots. That’s on top of somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5m in other budget spend potentially coming off the books via expiring contracts and club options.
It’s too much for one offseason to hope it all goes right. But Pelley is, at least, saying the right things. So maybe the glory days of the late 2010s aren’t so far in the rearview as they seem.
