Photo Credit: Paunovel/Wikimedia Images
Hope #1: Players buy into Paunovic’s system.
Actually, judging by their preseason performance, especially at the Simple Invitational in Portland, this might be happening already. The Fire won all three matches in Portland by a 9-2 margin. While what’s on the pitch now is surely not the finished product in terms of player personnel, what was on display in Portland was encouraging in terms of employing a style that is both high-press and adaptive.
“This is something we announced as soon as I arrived there,” said Paunovic “The team was prepared at least from the point that we were going to do that. When the moment came, they were ready. They wanted to accept and they wanted to play the way we asked. Slowly but firmly, the team is starting to understand the advantages of playing of having different styles and ability and knowing most importantly to know how to win.”
Photo Credit: Don MacGregor
Hope #2: Improvement from players like Polster, Accam, Gilberto, and Igboananike.
Those are four of the eleven players who are still here from last year’s roster. All have potential to do some great things for the club. Matt Polster earned a lot of plaudits for his play last season, but also needs to reduce the amount of yellow cards he accumulates. When healthy, David Accam can give opposing defenses fits.
However, he wasn’t healthy all of the time and his progress was stunted whenever he got to Portland last season (preseason or regular season as he got injured there). There is also promise with Gilberto.The Brazilian striker needs to have the ball and needs to have more of a killer instinct to make Toronto FC fans wish their club didn’t let him go.
Kennedy Igboananike is under the most pressure to succeed as his DP status was paid down last season to bring in Gilberto. Igboananike enters this season with his DP status restored and needs to produce more as an attacking option.
Hope #3: Newer players are able to contribute.
The trades of Patrick Nyarko and Harry Shipp did not sit well with Fire fans—especially the latter. They are simply too numerous to mention, but a pair of trailists that did impress and are set to join the club are El Salvador international and former FC Dallas player Arturo Alvarez and former Ajax youth product John Goossens—both midfielders. Both were omnipresent when they were on the pitch this preseason for the Fire.
There are also rookies such as Jonathan Campbell and Brandon Vincent who were highly-rated at the MLS SuperDraft and homegrown player Joey Calistri from Northwestern. While Collin Fernandez is one of the eleven players who were on last season’s roster, he might get some more playing time with the senior squad and a chance to impress with the absence of Shipp.
One Fear: It’s going to be another long season.
If you talk to general manager Nelson Rodriguez, this is still a work in progress and will likely be one throughout this season. The lineup that takes the pitch against New York City FC on March 6th may have a vastly different look to it by October 23rd in Toronto. Basically, Rodriguez and Paunovic are preaching patience to a fan base that, after the last six seasons with just one playoff match, has very little of it if any. So the fear is that it will be another long season, though this is qualified by the foundation that Rodriguez and Paunovic are trying to lay to make the Fire an elite club again.
The first step is to get the club to learn how to win again after winning just 14 of 68 league matches the last two seasons. What we saw in preseason has at least brought some optimism and both Rodriguez and Paunovic are not afraid to make difficult and unpopular decisions (read Shipp, Harry). It just appears unlikely that this will be a turnaround similar to what D.C. United experienced from 2013 to 2014.
