Toronto FC has talent, but little depth. (Getty Images)

Its the very last team in our 2010 Look-in series. First off sorry TFC fans for not posting this sooner. I had ever intention of doing this last week but set backs got in the way.

Lots of changes have taken place in Toronto this winter. From the turf being removed for natural grass at BMO Field, to a new manager in Preki taking cover and re-doing the roster his way. Lots of changes have taken place but have any really done a good enough job of getting this club ready for 2010?

Will this be the year that Toronto finally gets to the playoffs? Is Preki the right guy to lead the way? Let’s take a look now to see where this team is at right now and what places they need to improve on before the new season gets underway.

Continue Reading…

Toronto's O'Brian White looks to break out in 2010.

Normally in my season previews I go team-by-team but this year as I mentioned earlier in the week I am doing something a little different. Instead of the old way I’m trying something new to break up the content and give folks a little more room for discussion.

Today’s topic is all about who is the next guy to be a big impact player in this league. Or for someone to finally come out of their shell and help lead their club to the playoffs or even better a MLS Cup. I know a lot of these previews depend on the league and the player’s coming together on a new CBA but for the sake of things we’ll be optimistic here and say they do come to terms on something soon.

So I went club to club and asked a few folks who they thought would be the next big thing for their clubs. Some clubs will have just one guy to watch out for and some will have two. If a guy you think is going to break out this season isn’t on this list, hit the comments below with your reasoning behind it.

Now some are rookies and others are guys that have been around the league for a little while. I tried to balance it out between those two groups. Continue Reading…

One of two things could happen next year when the Vancouver MLS team joins in the fun (along side Portland of course). Either BMO the main sponsor of Toronto FC drops them to sponsor Vancouver or they decide to sponsor both.

Honestly looking at it the latter of the two will likely happen. Thanks to a WVH reader Ethan for sending in this link earlier (the bit I’m referring to is at the end of the article). Vancouver is already looking for a kit sponsor to go on their new adidas jerseys next year.

Lenarduzzi said BMO -a major Whitecaps sponsor -wants to bid on the team’s MLS jersey sponsorship.

“I think they have really liked the success they’ve had with Toronto FC and to have that exposure in both the east and west would be good for their brand,” he said.

BMO looking to expand their footprint as a sponsor in Canada and in MLS is a good thing though I know some in Vancouver are hoping for an even bigger sponsor to rival Seattle’s jersey sponsor X-Box 360. Seattle gets about $4 million a year from that deal with Microsoft, while Toronto only brings in between $1 and 1.5 million from BMO.

Maybe a bidding war for their jersey sponsorship would be a fun thing to watch for the new club.

Adrian Serioux is back in Houston.

First it was Kevin Hartman who spun up some fun with the CBA issues, then it was Adrian Serioux. Last week Hartman got his wish to join a new club after Kansas City told him he was not in their 2010 plans and today Serioux gets the same wish.

Toronto FC has traded Serioux’s rights to the Houston Dynamo for a 2011 third-round draft pick. The trade has yet to be announced but will be by the end of the week. Gareth Wheeler of the Toronto Sun was the first to break this story earlier today.

Serioux was released from Toronto last month but due to the old MLS CBA the Red retained his player rights, meaning if he wanted to go elsewhere in MLS another club would have to work out a deal with Toronto. Houston released defender Kevin Harmse yesterday to make room for this deal from what I can gather.

This will be the second time in Houston for Serioux. He was first a member of the Dynamo back when the club first moved to Houston. He was later sent to Dallas and then to Toronto last year. Now back in Houston he will help make the Dynamo defense one of the best in the league.

I love this move for the Dynamo. They haven’t done a lot this winter but the few things they have done I do believe will work out in their favor. Getting Serioux really boosts their defense more than some might think. He already knows how to play for Kinnear which makes the learning curve that much less.

As for Toronto it still baffles me how they could let a quality Canadian defender go this easily here. Things have definitely changed in Toronto but I’m not sure yet if they are for the better.

For a while now we’ve said here on this blog that MLS Cup 2010 was likely going to be in one of three places, Toronto, Philadelphia or New York. Turns out that is just the case as a couple sites have reported the four (yes four) cities that are in the running for MLS Cup 2010. Apparently the league has heard bids from each city and will be picking a host in the very near future.

Those cities are three mentioned above with LA being the fourth.

Deep down I see it coming to either Toronto or New York in the end here. But let’s look at each cities’ chances here.

New York (Red Bull Arena): A brand-new stadium, which happens to be the best stadium the league has ever seen to this date, in the league’s biggest media market. I think all they had to do was show up with a couple photos of the facility and the league was probably already hooked.

The thing about Red Bull Arena is most of the cool stuff that will be around the stadium hasn’t been built yet. I’d say the league may hold off until 2011 for the MLS Cup. By then all the cool little things around the stadium should be in place and this truly will be a great venue in and out for hosting a MLS Cup.

Philadelphia (PPL Park): The new stadium on the waterfront in Chester is a nice one. The thing going against their bid (which was a good one) is the fact that the stadium won’t be finished until summer. Which also means a lot of items around the stadium may not be done by then either. My wonder is if their bid contained PPL Park (which I assume it would) or if they went bigger by going with the Linc.

Toronto (BMO Field): I saw their pitch in PDF form, and it was pretty cool. We’ve all heard about the promise of Toronto hosting a MLS Cup by 2012 but this year would make the most sense with the new grass field at the stadium. Now that the FieldTurf is gone it makes more sense to go ahead and give Toronto this game.

What could go against Toronto is the two new stadiums in the US. I still see this being the year Toronto gets to host the game…even if it means hosting a game in November in cold weather. (note: remember the first few MLS Cups, they were in nasty cold weather in the Northeast)

LA (Home Depot Center): This venue is really a fail-safe for the league. Its in the second biggest market and the stadium can easily host a good MLS Cup. This really however is probably a backup plan for the league should something go wrong with one of the three eastern bids.

This is a rumor that has been speculated pretty much all winter. Midfielder Carl Robinson would be traded from Toronto FC to the New York Red Bulls. Well it appears that that deal is nearly complete but its not entirely a sure bet.

For the most part we can gather that Robinson has been sent to New York for a draft pick in the 2011 SuperDraft (probably a second-rounder, maybe a first due to Robinson’s high salary). TFC will have to still pay for a portion of Robinson’s $300k salary (some reports suggest they’ll be on the hook for around $200k or so of it).

Here’s the deal though, Robinson has to go on a mini-trial here with the Red Bulls. He’s been released from TFC according to Duane Rollins at The 24th Minute and if he gets a deal with New York then TFC will get some draft picks and be on the hook for a portion of his salary. But there isn’t a sure bet that he’ll be in Hans Backe’s plan in New York.

Robinson would clearly be a big upgrade though the club does have rookie Tony Tchani and veteran Seth Stammler in a similar position. Tchani will be the future of this club no doubt but having a veteran like Robinson around for even a year could prove wise.

As for the Toronto side of things this is probably a way to clear of some salary (had they been able to get rid of all $300k of Robinson’s salary I’d consider this a bigger deal for them). Rollins believes they’ll be using this free space to try and sign Paul Dickov in the summer transfer window.

We’ll keep an eye on this story and let you know of any updates that happen to it.

Wow, I must say I’ve kept this post in the icebox for too long. I originally started writing this back in January when the adidas catalog came out with all the 2010 MLS kits. Somehow this got pushed back to the start of March. I’ll go ahead and blame couple things, my laziness for finishing it, the SuperDraft taking up a lot of my time in January and the whole CBA mess that is still going on.

Anyways, I wanted to talk about each kit and how the league is doing as far as their branding is concerned. Some clubs are hitting it out of the park with their branding while others aren’t doing too well with the kits that are being made. Some blame can be set on adidas for bad templates while others can be pointed to the club themselves.

The league as a whole hasn’t done great in the jersey department over the years. Who doesn’t remember when the league unveiled their first kits back in the day? Some were better than others at the time and we probably should blame Nike in a way for the train wreck in the naming of some clubs as well. But now that the league is strictly adidas it seems as though things are turning around for the better.

As FanHouse soccer writer Brian Straus points out back in January (he definitely beat me to this punch btw) there are still too many white jerseys. Straus did a similar look a while back, and he pointed out that some clubs are slowly getting things right with a few still picking up the slack. I agree with that, still too many white kits on the menu this year but it seems like as we add clubs to this league the new ones continue to brand themselves very nicely while the originals continue to catch up.

Anyways, here’s my look at the new jerseys for the year. Feel free to comment below on what  you like/dislike about the new kits. Continue Reading…