TORONTO – Toronto FC is welcoming back plenty of players from injury this week, with both Jonathan Osorio and captain Steven Caldwell returning to the training field on Tuesday, ahead of TFC’s Sunday encounter with Chivas USA (3 pm ET, UniMas).
But Toronto FC is also expecting another name back in the mix soon, as Designated Player Jermain Defoe gets set to return to the club in the coming days.
“What I understand is he’s supposed to be back on the 20th,” TFC head coach Greg Vanney told reporters at training Tuesday. “He has a match that he’s targeted in terms of returning to play.”
Defoe has spent the better part of the last four weeks in England, rehabbing from a groin injury turned sports hernia he picked up earlier in the season. Meanwhile, a whirlwind of speculation has formed around Defoe's future in MLS after comments made by Toronto FC's president and CEO, Tim Leiweke, during a talk he held at Ryerson University last week.
“We’re not done by any means,” Leiweke said regarding TFC's rebuilding process. “We will have some new DPs we got to go get next year, I predict. I personally don’t think Defoe will come back. I think if he doesn’t want to be here, you get rid of him.”
Vanney isn’t certain about Defoe’s future, either, one that has had many conflicting reports since Ryan Nelsen was relieved of his post as head coach on Aug. 31.
“In terms of Jermain in January, I don’t know,” Vanney admitted. “Maybe he comes back and he finds out that he really likes what’s going on and the direction and he changes his mind. I have no idea where his mind’s at, to be honest. I haven’t had a sit-down, long conversation with him about things.”
Toronto FC currently sit seventh in the Eastern Conference, two places out of a playoff berth with seven matches remaining in the year. This precarious position fuelled another of Leiweke’s comments on the day.
“We’re on the right path here, but we’ve had seven years worth of losing and the minute we hit a bad patch here, we expect to lose now,” Leiweke said. “We still have a mentality at TFC of, ‘here we go again.’ The only two guys in our locker room that are looking around going ‘We ain’t going down unless we go down fighting’ are Michael Bradley and Greg Vanney.”
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Bradley’s reaction to the comments on Tuesday shed a little more light on the situation.
“Tim is very clever in the way that he goes about things, with the words that he chooses and the moments that he chooses to say something,” Bradley said. “He has an incredible presence and an incredible aura about him when he speaks and when he walks into a room. We all know that there’s no bigger supporter of this team than him.
“On the inside of that locker room, there’s a group of guys who are ready to give everything they have over the course of these last seven games,” Bradley continued. “But, having said that, we’re not in a hole, the situation is not nearly as doom and gloom as so many people try to make it out to be. I think you saw on Saturday night that, whatever happens these last seven games, we’re going down swinging.”
Armen Bedakian covers Toronto FC for MLSsoccer.com.
