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-TFCnews.ca Staff
A 64th-minute goal from Chad Barrett earned Toronto FC a point in a hard-fought 1-1 draw with the Columbus Crew on Saturday at BMO Field.
Emmanuel Ekpo gave the Crew the lead 10 minutes earlier, capping a slaloming dribbling run through the TFC defense with a cool finish. But Barrett’s header off of a tremendous cross from Sam Cronin drew the Reds level, despite being outshot 17-5 by a game Columbus side.
The result extends two winless streaks — the Crew are still looking for their first win of the season (0-2-5), while Toronto is now 0-4-4 all-time against their Trillium Cup rivals. The teams also played to a 1-1 draw on March 28 in Columbus.
Toronto FC stayed with the same 4-3-3 alignment and starting XI that brought them victory in their last two games. For the Crew, two changes were made to the side that tied the Chicago Fire last Saturday. Robbie Rogers replaced the injured Adam Moffat in midfield, while defender Jed Zayner filled in for Gino Padula, who was serving a one-game suspension following a red card in the Chicago match.
Almost as if on cue with the opening whistle, a strong wind and driving rain blew in, leading to some wild passes in the opening minutes as the two teams adjusted to the suddenly wet conditions. Columbus defender Eric Brunner slipped on the wet turf while trying to clear the ball, leading to a turnover to Toronto’s Carl Robinson. The midfielder himself had trouble finding his footing, and could only manage a weak attempt at the Crew goal.
Columbus had the advantage over the first 15 minutes, keeping the ball in the TFC end and earning three corner kicks. Guillermo Barros Schelotto notched the Crew’s first shot on goal (a fairly harmless test of Reds goalkeeper Stefan Frei), but also picked up a caution after a reckless foul on TFC striker Pablo Vitti.
As the weather improved, so did TFC’s attack. In the 20th minute, Barrett accepted a long pass just on the edge of the Crew penalty area. Barrett was closely marked by defender Danny O’Rourke, but managed to create enough room for himself to thread a pass through the middle towards a charging Vitti. The pass was just a step or two beyond Vitti’s reach, however, and goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum fell on the ball to end the threat.
This near-miss, however, was virtually the only offensive chance created by the Reds over the first 40 minutes. It took 35 minutes just for TFC to record their first shot, a wide attempt from Vitti. It was a disappointing start for a side that had looked so strong on attack in its last two games, and entered the match fourth in the league in shots taken (75).
The Crew outshot the Reds by an 11-2 margin in the first half, but couldn’t convert the advantage into a goal. In the 39th minute, midfielder Eddie Gaven made some nice moves to control a bouncing ball and move down the center of the TFC penalty area. He dropped a pass off to Schelotto, but the shot from the reigning MLS Most Valuable Player sailed over the net.
A couple of minutes later, midfielder Robbie Rogers had an even more promising attempt off of a Schelotto free kick. Frei got caught up in a crowd trying to jump and grab the ball, and the ball deflected to Rogers in front of the net. The attempt was also off-target, as Rogers sent a partially deflected shot over the crossbar.
Dwayne De Rosario, who had missed TFC’s previous two games with a hamstring injury, came into the match at halftime as a substitution for striker Danny Dichio.
In the 54th minute, Columbus finally broke through. Ekpo knocked down a bouncing ball and ran down the center of the field, took advantage of a turned-around Jim Brennan and then ran between Brennan and Velez. Frei was drawn out of the goal to challenge, and Ekpo rounded the goalkeeper to his left before putting the ball into the net to give the Crew a 1-0 lead.
It was the first goal of the season for the second-year Nigerian, and his first since last July 5 against Chicago. Ekpo’s goal ended an impressive shutout streak from Frei, who had kept a clean sheet for his previous 240 minutes.
The key to the Crew’s early-season struggles has been their inability to hold a lead, however, and it struck again just 10 minutes later. TFC rookie midfielder Cronin took a pass from Amado Guevara and made a great run down the left side, evading a defender and sending a fantastic cross to Barrett just in front of the goal area. The Reds striker made no mistake with a header that found the back to the net for his second goal of the year and put Toronto back level.
In the ensuing minutes, both teams had a quality chance at the go-ahead goal. Gaven’s header on the right side of the TFC net required a point-blank save from Frei. In the 72nd minute, Marvell Wynne won a tough battle for the ball down the right side with Crew midfielder Brian Carroll and crossed to a charging De Rosario, whose attempt went high.
Though Frei lost his shutout streak earlier in the game, the Toronto ‘keeper was once again in good form on the day, and faced with his toughest challenge in the 78th minute. Defender Adrian Serioux took a bad touch of a back pass, and sent the ball directly to a wide-open Pat Noonan. In a one-on-one situation, Frei was able to get a leg on the ball before Noonan could properly square and shoot, and the attempt was deflected out of bounds.
The last major chance of the game came on a De Rosario direct free kick in the 86th minute. De Rosario’s shot was well struck and evaded the Columbus wall, but it went just a few feet wide of the net.
TFC next plays on Wednesday, hosting the USL-1 Vancouver Whitecaps FC in the opening match of the 2009 Nutrilite Canadian Championship. The Reds’ next league game is on Sat., May 9 in Washington against Eastern Conference rivals D.C. United. As for Columbus, they head back to Crew Stadium to face off against the Kansas City Wizards next Saturday.
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The idea of local star Dwayne De Rosario having to earn his way on to the starting 11 of Toronto FC would’ve been unthinkable just two weeks ago.
But a lot has changed in a hurry, with his slight hamstring tear during the team’s winless streak, coach John Carver’s resignation and a new 4-3-3 alignment under new man Chris Cummins that fed a two-game winning streak and put TFC first in its MLS conference.
At Cummins’ introductory news conference on Tuesday, the media didn’t pay much heed to his comment that De Rosario would have to wait in line, chalking it up to his cheeky English humour.
“I’m very serious,” Cummins said yesterday. “DeRo was the first one to congratulate me the other day on getting the job. But he knows he has to work his way back in. If he thinks he’s just going to walk back into the team … he knows that just doesn’t happen.”
That said, Cummins does see De Rosario playing some kind of role today against the Columbus Crew.
“Whether he starts or not, you’ll have to wait for kickoff,” Cummins said. “If someone is having an offday, there’s enough ability to come on and cause teams some problems.
“I look at everything: Are (three strikers) Danny Dichio, Pablo Vitti and Chad Barrett okay? DeRo can play in any of those front four or five positions. He has more than enough ability to play on the left, the right, down the middle or just in behind where Amado Guevara plays (as an attacking midfielder).
“He’s trained well and if he comes on strong that’s another nice problem, but I want competition on the team. Just because he’s an outstanding player, doesn’t mean it’s (automatic).”
De Rosario was given yesterday off for bereavement leave after a grandparent passed away.
Columbus, the 2008 MLS champions, haven’t won a game yet (0-2-4) and Cummins hopes to keep it on the ropes with more early pressure today.
“They’ve been unlucky in a few of their games, but they’re still a decent team,” Cummins warned. “Their set pieces will be a key issue for us, so we need to eliminate those as much as possible. But we’ll play the way we have, with freedom and lots and lots of attacking options.”
Feud continues
There likely will be a few security briefings today with many Columbus fans among an expected 20,000-seat sellout and possible ripple effects of the bad blood in Ohio from the 2-2 tie in March.
But Toronto striker Dichio wouldn’t like to see the energy forced out of this budding rivalry.
“We obviously saw our fans down there and from a personal point of view, they behaved exceedingly well within the grounds,” Dichio said. “There was a lot of (verbal) battling going on, which I’d like to see more of, which is the English and European style.
“I didn’t see everything going on outside the grounds, but I heard a few stories where the fans got a bad rap from the press and it has been a bit unfair. It’s just because we go in large numbers and that’s what you’re going to have in large numbers in different grounds. The American police are not used to that wave of red coming into the grounds. A healthy banter is fine; that’s all part of soccer.
“Everyone is a rival in our division (three points separated five teams before the weekend). I see (Columbus) as a bogey team that we haven’t beaten yet. Hopefully, it’s a good chance to get that first win for us.”
Shut out hunger
TFC and Purolator are asking fans at today’s game to bring canned goods or a cash donation to the Tackle Hunger food drive in support of the Daily Bread Food Bank. In return for donations, fans will get a chance to win TFC prizes. Purolator will also donate 250 pounds of food for every corner kick throughout the game.
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Toronto FC midfielder Dwayne De Rosario returned to training Thursday while veteran striker Danny Dichio left early.
Dichio, who scored in Toronto’s 1-0 win over Kansas City on Sunday, seemed to hurt a leg during a scrimmage.
“I think Danny just got landed on during the game so we just pulled him out as a precaution,” interim head coach Chris Cummins told reporters. “He’s obviously seeing the medics this afternoon and we’ll see how he is again in the morning.”
De Rosario, however, was back in action after missing two games with an injured hamstring.
“He’s done a full session. He’s got through that. We’ll see how he is in the morning with regards to playing on the weekend,” Cummins said.
Toronto (3-2-2) hosts the Columbus Crew (0-2-4) on Saturday.
NOTES — Chicago Fire forward Brian McBride was voted MLS Player of the Month for April after scoring four goals in four games.
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John Carver brought Chris Cummins in to be his lead assistant with Toronto FC last May. So there is a temptation to paint Cummins, Carver’s replacement as the head coach of the club, as Carver 2.0.
On the day he was officially named as the club’s interim boss, Cummins said at least one thing to dispel that notion. He swears he will not allow Major League Soccer’s officiating get to him.
“Things like that don’t bother me. I’m quite laid back,” the 37-year-old Cummins said at a news conference yesterday at BMO Field. “You’re going to get poor decisions. You’re going to get things you’re unhappy with. But I think throughout the season, it swings and roundabouts. I think you get as many good ones as you do bad ones.”
Cummins, however, seems committed to continuing the manner in which Carver began the season. Carver resigned his post on Saturday because of his frustration with the league and its officiating. After leading TFC to a win on Sunday as the unofficial interim coach, Cummins got his official due yesterday.
Nick Dasovic, also an assistant under Carver, will serve as Cummins’ lead assistant. After the win on Sunday, the club’s director of soccer, Mo Johnston, suggested it was possible Dasovic would get the head job. But it sounds like Cummins was the man for the job all along.
“When you break it all down, within the locker room and the respect factor, it was an easy decision,” Johnston said.
“Obviously when [Carver] left, Chris took the team right off the bat,” Dasovic, a Vancouver native, added. “If you were present in the locker room before the game for the pregame talks he gave and how he got the team motivated, to me, it was a decision that already was made.”
Both Johnston and Cummins, who coached for 15 years in England before coming over to Toronto, lauded Carver’s style with the team. Cummins said his predecessor’s willingness to allow his assistants to implement their own ideas allowed him to blossom as a coach.
Still, there could be a few technical changes. While Carver favoured a formation that featured four defenders, four midfielders and two forwards, Cummins said he prefers to play four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards. That look was successful for TFC in two straight wins last week that vaulted the club into first place in the Eastern Division.
“What you’ll see is a team that is going to play attacking football,” Cummins said. “There’s going to be a freedom to play, to get the ball down [the field], to pass the ball, and to put on a show as well as get the result. That doesn’t mean we’re going to be taking unnecessary risks, playing out in the back and causing ourselves problems.”
Cummins will be given the chance to implement his style.
“I’ve told these guys, ‘Don’t look over your shoulder. Just keep doing the job you’re doing and let’s get on with it,”‘ Johnston said as he looked at his coaching staff. “I’m not looking at anyone else.”
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The Columbus Crew is coming to Toronto.
Quick, someone hide the women and children.
The Crew and Toronto FC bring out the beast in each other — and that’s just in the stands.
If this were the western frontier of the 1800s, Saturday’s meeting would be the equivalent of the Clanton boys riding into Tombstone to party with the Earps.
We’re talkin’ Hatfields and McCoys, cats in the doghouse, and George Bush at the bin Laden family picnic. Not great mixers.
The league may have only itself to blame. When Toronto joined the MLS in 2007, it set up the Trillium Cup, a three-game series in hopes of fostering a rivalry with Columbus. It has worked, perhaps, a bit too well.
The proximity of the cities has led to the largest travelling contingent of fans in league history, a stronger fan club in Columbus, and a healthy war of words. It has also escalated into some unhealthy physical altercations.
Last year, a Crew supporter and a TFC fan scuffled over a team scarf. As well, already upset about midfielder Robbie Roberts being hit by a cup of beer during a game, Crew fans traded insults and punches with TFC fans outside BMO Field.
In this season’s opener, almost 1,600 Toronto supporters travelled to Columbus. There were political taunts; damage to the stadium.
After the game, five got arrested, one got tasered and the post-game fights were featured on You-Tube.
Much of the flak, perhaps unfairly, has been directed at the 500-strong Red Patch Boys, and other smaller official fan clubs.
“The stuff that happens in Europe is a totally different sociological issue,” Red Patch club president Jack DePoe said.
“Those hooligan groups are roughly equivalent to our street gangs in North America. Here, they form around where you live. There, they form around political alliances and sports teams. We have a rivalry with … Columbus.”
They are loud, they are proud, they may even be rude, said DePoe, but they aren’t hooligans.
Last week, a club member, Corporal Greg Yeoman, Third Battalion Royal Canadians, was honoured by the team for his duty in Afghanistan. Not exactly criminal types.
They do not condone players being given beer baths and, says DePoe, fighting or throwing objects — other than the traditional paper streamers — is grounds for having membership forfeited.
“We understand why (we get blamed). We don’t accept that we do,” DePoe said.
Visible and vocal, the clubs are easy targets. There is room to be misunderstood.
“We are very exuberant,” DePoe said. “No question. People who aren’t part of our group; maybe they don’t get it and see the opportunity to get crazy.
“But we have a purpose. It’s not for the sake of acting like jerks. It’s to get behind the team and give them energy … that 12th man status is something we’re very proud of.”
The people involved in altercations in Columbus weren’t Red Patch Boys, nor were the two youths arrested last week for throwing flares.
“We can keep our own people under control, but a lot of people went (to Columbus) on their own.
“If there’s someone you don’t know and you walk up and say: ‘Hey, buddy, don’t throw that beer.’ And he’s drunk, what are the odds he’ll listen? It’s a tough situation for us. We know the consequences of throwing stuff and violence and we don’t want a part of it.”
The Red Patch Boys will gather Saturday at BMO Field and, communication officer Paul Lewicki said: “If (Columbus fans) show up at our tailgate, we’d welcome them.
“We don’t really have anything against Columbus … their ugly yellow uniforms might be the only thing we don’t like.”
Them’s fightin’ words.
But only, remember, in the nicest possible way.
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Chris Cummins, the new interim head coach of Toronto FC, says he’s not the type of guy to get too worked up about poor officiating.
“Things like that don’t bother me if I’m honest with you,” Cummins said yesterday after being named successor to John Carver, who quit last week. “I’m quite laid back.”
That certainly wasn’t the temperament of his predecessor, who tendered his resignation a few days after being fined $750 (U.S.) for publicly criticizing the officiating in Toronto’s 3-2 loss at FC Dallas on April 19.
It was one of several run-ins the 44-year-old Englishman had with Major League Soccer referees during his 15 months on the job.
While Carver said in an interview this week the “last straw” was being ordered by MLS to return to the sidelines after spending a game coaching from a private box atop BMO Field and “out of the firing line” of on-field officials, TFC general manager Mo Johnston yesterday said it was Toronto management who made the request.
“John wanted to sit upstairs, we wanted him to sit downstairs,” Johnston said after announcing the appointment of Cummins and the elevation of Canadian Nick Dasovic to be TFC’s first assistant coach.
“John had numerous things going on that had to be taken care of,” Johnston said. “That wasn’t the breaking point.”
Johnston said Carver was “disillusioned by the whole scheme of things,” including MLS, refereeing and the stress of the situation.
Johnston insisted, as has Carver, that the two men did not have a falling out and that he tried to talk the coach into staying.
“There was no going back,” Johnston said. “He didn’t let me or anyone else down. He gave everything he had and he just couldn’t go on.”
Reached by telephone yesterday afternoon as he watched the Arsenal-Manchester United Champions League game on television, Carver agreed “there was a number of issues” that led to his resignation.
When he spoke to Johnston about sitting downstairs for last Sunday’s game, Carver said he assumed it was the league making the request.
While saying a confidentiality agreement precluded him from discussing his departure any further, he did wish Cummins all the best.
“I’m delighted for him,” Carver said of the man he brought to TFC in May of last year. “It’s a great opportunity and he’s got my blessing.”
Cummins, 37, a native of Watford, England, said he’s “really excited” and promised “a team that’s going to play attacking football.”
Cummins was the main coach on the sidelines for the past two games, both 1-0 home wins. In each, TFC employed three strikers and took the game to the visitors and should have won by a wider margin.
“Every single day we’ll be working tirelessly to bring success to this club,” he said.
TFC (3-2-2) sits first in the Eastern Conference and hosts defending champion Columbus (0-2-4) on Saturday.
Johnston said although the title is interim, “I’ve told these guys: `Don’t look over your shoulder. Just keep doing the job you’re doing and let’s get on with it.’ I’m not looking at anyone else.”
Tom Anselmi, executive vice-president and chief operating officer with TFC owner Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., said he doesn’t share Carver’s concerns the team is getting unfair treatment from MLS or its referees.
“Referees are human beings and sometimes they make a call you like and sometimes they make a call you don’t like,” Anselmi said.
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Filed under: Toronto FC
Quick thought: It is impossible to spell fact or fiction without T, F, or C.
Anyhow, it was this line of thinking that prompted me to corner the man behind the matches at BMO Field this summer, friend of new media and Director of Business Operations for Toronto FC, Paul Beirne.
In its three-year existence, Toronto FC has been active in organizing friendly dates at BMO Field that satisfies the international football flavour of the people who walk through the turnstiles each summer.
Pachuca, Independiente, Benfica and Aston Villa have all crossed the white lines on the lakefront to match wits against the young MLS franchise. But as of now, there are no friendlies planned for the TFC faithful in 2009.
“I’d love it if Real Madrid came and played here,” Beirne said of the latest whisperings. “But, no, there is nothing like that going on.”
Beirne was responding to recent speculation that the defending Spanish champions might make a side trip north of the border as part of its yet-to-be-official-mini-tour of the U.S. this summer.
But why not? If one of the biggest clubs in the world is interested in preparing for its La Liga season by playing MLS competition, why wouldn’t Beirne fill his fork full of Euros to lure them to Toronto, a city with a Spanish-speaking population of over 80,000?
“We have always been outspoken about trying to bring in all kinds of international football. We’ve been to the EPL, the Portuguese league and I’d love to see a Spanish league club; my vision for these friendlies is that over a long period of time every part of the world is represented.”
Yes, continue …
“Part of the reasoning behind having a compressed schedule at the beginning of the summer was not just over friendlies but we have to win the Canadian Championship,” Beirne explained. “(Winning) results in a two-game play-in to the Champions League and if successful that is six more games. So we need an even and spread-out schedule in the second half to accommodate that.”
There it is. As much as this team is desperate to make the playoffs, it is still crimsoned-faced over watching the Montreal Impact represent (quite well, I might add) Canadian soccer in the CONCACAF Champions League. While sating the public desire to watch the best the rest of the world has to offer perform on the pitch at BMO is important to the club, restoring Toronto FC as the top domestic club in Canada is paramount.
This was not the case last summer, when playing host and marketing the game to Toronto’s countless communities weighed down an already heavy summer schedule.
In July of last year TFC played eight matches, or an average of two per week. The number is nine if you count the players who took the field in the MLS All-Star game. Of those eight matches, two points were earned and one Nutrilite Canadian Championship was lost.
It also took until the last day of May for TFC to play its 10th league match and July 22 before the Canadian Championship wrapped up. In 2009, Toronto will have 10 league matches by the first week of May and all the Canadian Championship will be decided on, or before, June 18.
While playoffs have been the buzz word around TFC in its third season, the set up of the schedule and the tendency to place friendly encounters on the back-burner dictate returning to the top of the Canadian soccer food chain might come first.
So sorry, Real Madrid, but you will have to wait.
The Cummins era begins in earnest
Cummins charmed the *@$& out of the media on hand to welcome him as interim coach on Wednesday.a The likeable new coach talked of consulting his wife for tips on how to talk to the press, buying his ‘mum’ a computer so she could track his career in Canada and the mouth-watering topic of playing an attacking 4-3-3 that will certainly make a tough ticket even tougher.
Carver era ends
Much ink has been spilled over John Carver and his abrupt exit from MLS. Gerry Dobson sat down with the former coach in search of answers. Make sure to watch.
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There isn’t a great deal of suspense surrounding the search for Toronto FC’s interim head coach. Either Chris Cummins or Nick Dasovic will be named the club’s interim coach on Wednesday, and whichever of the two Reds assistant coaches is tapped for the top job, the decision will be popular with the players.
“They’re both great guys,” said midfielder Carl Robinson. “They get on well with the boys … and they’re great coaches as well. They’re both very technical, very tactical, so we’re going to be in good hands.”
TFC manager and director of soccer Mo Johnston announced on Sunday that the team would be looking only at Cummins and Dasovic for the head coaching job that was vacated by John Carver last Friday. With the season just seven games old and Carver’s resignation coming as something of a surprise, hiring one of the assistants would help the club retain some continuity.
“If a new manager comes in, he starts studying the players, getting to know them and we’re starting from scratch,” said team captain Jim Brennan. “Here, we have good momentum at the moment and whoever comes in, we’ll just continue that.
“They’re both great guys and great coaches and they have a great deal of respect from all the players. Whomever gets it, they already have the dressing room.”
Cummins ran the sidelines on Wednesday during TFC’s 1-0 win against Chivas USA while Carver directed things from a stadium box, and Cummins was also the coach of record for the Reds’ 1-0 win over Kansas City on Sunday. He said that both he, Dasovic and the whole team are focused only on this Saturday’s match against Columbus rather than the coaching situation.
“It was a tough week last week with everything that went on,” Cummins said. “I’ve just come in to do my job. I love my job just as Das does. … We’ve just trained with the lads and nobody’s talking about it, to be honest with you. We’re just coming in and getting on with our jobs. We’ll wait and see what happens tomorrow.”
It would be the first time as the head coach of a professional club for either Cummins or Dasovic, as both men have built their reputations as quality developers of young talent in several different leagues around the world.
Cummins, 37, began his pro coaching career in his early 20s and got his first professional coaching job with his hometown Watford Football Club in 1996, hired by Watford legend and former England head coach Graham Taylor. He served as the team’s youth development director and assistant academy manager of both the under-16 and youth teams before being named Watford’s director of youth and the youth and reserve team coach.
He moved on to take the same role with Luton Town, where he first worked with Carver. When Carver took over the TFC job 15 months ago, he brought Cummins into the fold as Toronto’s assistant coach upon the conclusion of Luton’s season in May 2008.
Cummins said that he has learned lessons from all of the coaches he has worked with, but also noted that part of the reason he was interested in coaching in the first place was as a reaction to what he felt was poor instruction in his semi-pro playing days.
“I was quite opinionated, and I used to get frustrated, to be honest with you, with some coaches that I didn’t think knew the game,” Cummins said. “So I got into the coaching side and I was fortunate to get the opportunity when I was very young. People talk about me being a young coach, but I’ve been in the professional game now for 16 years.”
Perhaps the best-known of Cummins’ charges is current Aston Villa winger Ashley Young. Cummins has known Young since he was a 10-year-old entering the Watford Academy for the first time, and oversaw Young’s development into a star for Watford, Villa and now the English national team.
Cummins deflected praise for helping Young and the other notable players that he had taught on the way, instead saying the credit belonged to the players themselves.
“I’ve had an influence in some of their careers but it comes down to their natural talent, their ability and their desire to want to do well. I can’t take all the credit for that,” Cummins said.
For Dasovic, Toronto FC is the latest stop in a footballing journey that has taken him all over Canada and Europe. The Vancouver native’s 16-year professional playing career took him to Croatia, Sweden, France and Sweden, as well as stints with the North York Rockets of the old Canadian Soccer League and the USL’s Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps.
“I’ve had the opportunity to live in Sweden, France, Scotland and you learn different styles of football, different ways of life and cultures,” Dasovic said. “It helps to make you a more complete person in every aspect, not just in coaching.”
Dasovic’s playing and coaching careers overlapped, as he served as an assistant coach while still playing for the Whitecaps from 2002 to 2005. Upon retirement, he became Vancouver’s reserve team coach in 2006 as well as an assistant coach in the national program, first with Canada’s under-20 team and then with the national team, a position he still holds to this day. The international duty was a natural step for a man who was a fixture in Canada’s midfield and back line; Dasovic’s 63 caps are the sixth-most of any player in Canada’s history.
While Dasovic, 40, enjoys his role with Canada, he has relished the chance to work for Toronto FC. He joined the club last May as the head of the TFC Academy, and this season was promoted to working with the first team.
“I prefer to be in club football, only because with the Canadian national program, you didn’t really coach,” Dasovic said. “You had three months off then you’d go away on a trip for 10 days and there wasn’t a lot of coaching you could do. It was more monitoring the players’ fitness levels, etc. and then you’d have another three-month break. This is the element of coaching is where you want to be right now because you’re in there every single day in an environment when there’s a lot of pressure on everybody. It’s good to be part of pressure because it keeps you striving to be better.”
Dasovic said the coaching staff and players have already adjusted to moving on without Carver since each coach was already given a lot of responsibility.
“The good part about being with the club is that JC gave us roles and let us do our own thing. He wasn’t there looking over our backs the whole time,” Dasovic said. “Coming into this role it’s comfortable. Me and Chris have been working together for over a year now and we get on well. Everything’s been great.
“There is no transition, as far as I’m concerned. It’s status quo. Obviously JC’s not there, but in terms of Chris, myself, [strength and conditioning coach] Paul [Winsper], [goalkeeper coach Mike] Toshack and the rest of the staff, we carried on and I think that’s what’s been good about it.”
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