THE STARTING 11: Ways TFC Plans To Avoid Future Absences
“Oh look Greg, he looks like a decent wide midfielder”
One of the big themes leading up to this past weekend’s match was the amount of potential absences TFC would have to deal with against RSL. Through a dreaded combo of international call-ups, injury, suspension and possibly alien abduction, The Reds were forced to face what will become this season’s demon… depth. TFC are a top-heavy squad but with plenty more absences on the radar in 2015, the club has put some contingency plans in place to avoid major disruptions in the future…
11. Ask Michael Bradley to play five positions rather than the three he usually demands
10. Go back to Chivas USA’s old offices – check to see if there were any scraps they didn’t already pick up
9. Get Jason DeVos, Craig Forrest, Adrian Serioux and Danny Dichio fired from their TV gigs – sign them immediately
8. Start counting Chris Konopka as two men
7. Travel to away fixtures in freight rail cars – sign hobos to short-term deals
6. Sign up the chubbiest Timbits kid after halftime show
5. Send scouts to the annual Vanney family picnic – see if any other nephews look useful during the frisbee tournament
4. One lucky fan in the upper deck gets to exchange those seats for… the starting left back position!
3. TFC III
2. Extra Argos who happen to be hanging around (Effective: 2016)
1. Bitchy the Holding Midfielder
March 30, 2015
0 – just get MLS to wink and ignore the rules and let you sign another player. Still waiting for any kind of official explanation of how they can get simonin, or even a casual one that actually makes sense. doubt we’ll get it.
March 30, 2015
The only explanation I’ve heard for being able to sign Simonin that makes any sense is that players on loan to TFC II don’t count towards the roster limit. So you’ve got 29 players on senior contracts but Manella, Bono, Aparicio, and Q are all still on loan at TFC II which leaves TFC roster compliant.
March 30, 2015
But if that’s allowed you could just stock pile good depth players and store them in TFC II or any other USL affiliate and call them up as needed.
March 30, 2015
exactly. stupidly big loophole. I mean it’s MLS so maybe that is the case, but would be preposterous. also last week when we also had morgan and hamilton and chapman down there, if they don’t count to mls anymore, then we only had one canadian on the roster, which would be a bit of a problem.
March 30, 2015
Yeah. Read Duncan’s article about it and actually gave it a little thought and I agree. It’ll be interesting to see what the roster rules actually are if they ever release them.
March 30, 2015
I guess that’s the key to this whole thing. ideally there’ll be something in there that would make it all make sense. there might well not be and it’s just mls being mls. if and when they put them out i guess we’ll know which it is. Until then, well who needs to know that sort of thing, silly riff raff supporters certainly don’t need to.
March 30, 2015
well here’s the answer to this one finally.
http://www.cp24.com/sports/toronto-fc-news/toronto-fc-roster-back-to-28-man-limit-1.2304583
One MLS player can be sent down on a season long loan and then he doesn’t count to the MLS team. doubt they’ll bother telling us who it is, but we’re down to 4 candidates, bono, roberts, aparicio and manella. I’d guess roberts, but Manella’s the captain so maybe it’s him.
I’d like them all, plus hamilton and chapman and simonin, to spend as much time there as injuries allow really.
March 30, 2015
Messi to TFC II