and then promptly got thrown out for brawling. How better to ingratiate himself to hockey-loving Canadians. Score for the team. Fight for the team. Who would have been surprised if they immediately renamed the grounds the Danny Dichio Pitch at BMO Field?)
His departure cleared the runway for high-value target Julian de Guzman, the skillful Canadian international who instantly becomes one of the league's premier holding midfielders. Here's hoping we see de Guzman sooner rather than later, pending approval of that sometimes-tricky international transfer certificate.
De Guzman was out of contract at Deportivo de La Coruña in Spain's La Liga. As he is out of contract, he remained eligible to join MLS despite the recent closure of the international transfer window.
He had been a regular at Hanover in Germany and then at La Coruña. He remains nestled into the sweet spot of professional soccer at age 28, old enough to know, still young enough to do. That's why he'll move into the tony Designated Player neighborhood of Major League Soccer.
And with Friday's big announcement will commence this debate: is a holding midfielder a prudent use of a club's DP tag? Up to now, the DP label has been reserved for strikers and attacking midfielders (although Claudio Reyna was something of a central 'tweener).
But good on Toronto for moving in a bold direction here. Talented, tenacious and always busy, de Guzman will surely make the TFC a better club in a lot of different ways.
I'm thinking, first of all, about Shalrie Joseph as a wonderful example of what a heady, tough holding midfielder can do for a club. You could have made a decent case for Joseph as the league MVP in 2007, 2008 and perhaps even this year (when Joseph has not only manned the holding midfield spot when asked to do so, but has demonstrated his versatility by playing frequently as a forward, too.)
Then I'm thinking about the LA Galaxy. Put a stronger presence in the center of the park, someone to tackle and toil for David Beckham and then hand the ball off to Major League Soccer's best passer from midfield, and I'd instantly make the Galaxy the top pick to win the whole shebang.
I'm thinking about Seattle, a better club earlier this year when Osvaldo Alonso was healthy and ricocheting around the park as the league's top ball winner of the moment. He hasn't really returned to early form after a June injury and Sounders FC have suffered for it.
I'm also thinking about how most MLS Cup champions had a strong presence at the holding midfielder position, where a good player often does so much more than many of us can see from the stands.
Columbus last year had Brian Carroll, who was enjoying a fantastic season and a career re-birth at Crew Stadium. The 2006 and 2007 Houston Dynamo had Ricardo Clark. (Although he didn't play in either of those title games, he certainly helped make those teams what they were.) Carroll was in holding role for D.C. United in 2004. Richard Mulrooney and Ronnie Ekelund was a formidable central tandem for San Jose in 2003 (feeding an exciting young attacker name Landon Donovan.) And so it goes.
In Toronto's case, there are already some good players at the position. Carl Robinson is a good distributor, but there's little comparison between the amount of ground potentially covered by de Guzman versus Robinson, who turns 33 next month. Sam Cronin shows promise at the spot, but he can play elsewhere, too. And there's also Amadou Sanyang, a 18-year-old potential star. But as he's just 18 he still has a learning curve ahead, as we saw with last week's untimely ejection.
Back to de Guzman. His ability to link quickly and cleverly with Amado Guevara and Dwayne De Rosario will frighten opposition. De Guzman is quite strong on the ball -- not to mention being someone with that rare ability to successful pull off several distinctive hair styles.
If you examine TFC's roster, the weakest spots remain at center back and, with Dichio's retirement, at striker. While de Guzman doesn't address either of those issues, a more active central screener would surely improve the overall defense.
Finally, TFC is bottom of the table in terms of goals allowed from the 76th minute on, which suggests some leadership issues. A strong central presence, someone seasoned by tough matches in the Bundesliga and in La Liga, seems like a move in the right direction there, too.
2. Younger DPs merging into MLS: All this talk of MLS as a landing ground for the aging stars of Europe might soon need to hush.
Now in their third season with access to the Designated Player tool, MLS managers seem to be learning more about how best to deploy their heavy weapon.
There will obviously still be some big names, fellows already into their 30s, who make their way into MLS on the back side of storied careers. Thierry Henry comes to mind, as he will continues to pop up in shop talk of potential DPs.
But do take note that the most recent two DP signings have also been the youngest two. Luis Angel Landin, signed last month by the Houston Dynamo, is just 24.
De Guzman is just 28.
Former Brazilian international Denilson had been the youngest DP singing previously; he was 30 when he debuted for FC Dallas in 2007.
3. Something missing from the MVP talk: Who could possibly have an issue with talk of Landon Donovan as the 2009 league MVP? He might not be your pick, but he certainly needs to be in the conversation, right?
Same for Sounders FC striker Fredy Montero. Ditto on an encore award for the Crew's Guillermo Barros Schelotto.
But in conversation and internet chatter, something seems missing: What about Omar Cummings?
The Colorado Rapids' striker has eight goals and 11 assists, still maintaining an outside shot at a 2009 Golden Boot challenge. As for that bright assist total, he's three ahead of the nearest challenger. Take that, Carlos Valderrama.
His chances of an MVP award, in all honesty, are probably reduced because when he does shoot and score, it happens for the Colorado Rapids. That's a team without much success historically and one still stuck on the playoff bubble for this go-round. And, generally speaking, players in the middle of the country tend to benefit from less publicity than teams out of the coasts.
In a perfect world, none of that matters -- but we know how that one goes.
Besides, anybody who has watched Gary Smith's Rapids play this year understands how Cummings' pace and power, especially when partnered with bruising Conor Casey, has been such a weekly handful for opposition defenses. And consider that Cummings has done his deeds without the benefit of an elite attacker out of midfield. Depending upon whom you count as a starter at Dick's Sporting Goods Park, the current midfield foursome has about 10 assists, most of those by Mehdi Ballouchy, who may have finally found his voice as regular contributor.
Still, Cummings will probably need a big surge over the Rapids' final seven matches to elbow his way into more of the MVP conversations. That won't be easy for the Jamaican international, as only two of those remaining matches are at home.
4. Richie Williams' next test: What might happen in the Red Bulls' apparently fluid coaching situation is anybody's guess. History suggests that upper management might lean toward a big name to guide the club in such important days, as Red Bull moves into that fabulous new arena in nearby Harrison, N.J.
Bruce Arena was the first managerial choice from Red Bull ownership. Juan Carlos Osorio, who was the highly sought flavor of the moment after guiding Chicago so successfully in the back half of 2007, was Red Bulls' second pick.
So whether interim man Williams finally gets his shot at the full-time post, only the money men in Austria could say.
But Williams has certainly passed the test so far, collecting two wins in two tries -- not bad at all considering the historically rickety club had won the same number of matches in 22 tries before Williams inherited the post from Osorio. (FYI, with a 5-3-2 mark in MLS matches, Williams is already the club's most successful manager in terms of winning percentage. Ten games may not represent a large sampling, but it's getting close to a point of critical mass, at least. Not taking sides here; just pointing out the facts.)
Now it gets a bit tougher, however, as Williams deals with an injury crisis around Giants Stadium. While the opponent could be seen as one of the more manageable ones in MLS, Williams' lineup against struggling Kansas City will depend heavily upon the late assessments for several heavy hitters.
Prized striker Juan Pablo Angel, cerebral midfielder Albert Celades and defenders Mike Petke and Kevin Goldthwaite all are questionable at best to make Saturday's contest against the Wizards.
Angel was the victim of a training ground injury, as a tackle in practice last week has left the high-scoring Colombian with a bum ankle.
Central defender Carlos Mendes is also out, of course, due to season-ending injury.
5. Rico's memorable strike: Even if it wasn't exactly a Paul Caligiuri memory maker layered with so much history, Ricardo Clark's big goal at Trinidad and Tobago earlier this week was massive just the same, moving the U.S. train down the World Cup qualifying tracks.
And while Clark may not have been anybody's top pick as the supplier of such heroics, it can't be totally surprising that the Houston Dynamo man concocted such a big moment.
(By the way, MLS sometimes gets beat up by the soccer snobs, who somehow deign to give the domestic league its due. But did anybody notice that every goal and assist and every big save in goal during the six-point sweep over the last few days was delivered by someone who plays in MLS now or got his start here? Look it up. It's true.)
In MLS, Clark is known as a guy who can decide a match from the 18-28 yard range. In fact, most of his goals in MLS (14 in 178 matches over seven years) have come from that distance. As a holding midfielder, Clark doesn't often get caught mixing it up inside the 18, but he does pop up in those enticing areas just beyond the penalty area.
His two goals in 2008 each came from beyond the 18, including a Goal-of-the-Week nominee in August against Real Salt Lake. And his two-goal season total didn't include another long-range strike that deflected off Dwayne De Rosario in a close win over Chicago.
In 2007 he hit a rising beauty from just inside the penalty area against in-state rival FC Dallas, an equalizer in a match that Houston would go on to win.
Clark's one goal this year did not come from close range, but it was a product of a big run out of midfield. The rangy U.S. international beat Chicago goalkeeper Jon Busch to a nicely weighted pass from Brian Ching in an important 3-2 win last month over Chicago.
Steve Davis is a freelance writer who has covered Major League Soccer since its inception. Steve writes for www.DailySoccerFix.com and can be reached at BigTexSoccer@yahoo.com. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author's, and not necessarily those of Major League Soccer or MLSnet.com.
