Toronto FC’s disappointing first half of the 2023 MLS season has led to a managerial change up north.
TFC head coach and sporting director Bob Bradley was fired from his respective positions on Monday, the Eastern Conference club announced. Assistant coach and technical director Mike Sorber was also relieved of his duties as Terry Dunfield takes over as interim head coach.
Dunfield, a former player with Shrewsbury Town, Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps, makes the jump to the first team from his previous U-17 head coaching role.
“Bob has been a consummate professional with Toronto FC and we thank him for his passion and tireless work during his time here. We are all disappointed that we were not able to achieve the results we expected,” said Toronto FC President Bill Manning.
Bradley was hired as head coach and sporting director in November 2021, registering a 14-26-19 recording during his spell in charge. Toronto FC failed to make the postseason in 2022 and currently sits 14th in the 15-team Eastern Conference this summer.
Despite key signings such as Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi, TFC has a -8 goal differential, which is the fourth worst in the league. The Canadian club has also failed to win away from BMO Field in 2023, registering a 0-6-4 record in road league matches.
so was it nepotism when Klinsmann misused MB as an 8/10 all those years because JK thought MB was the best option?? not even at the 6?
I’m definitely with JR on this one
as for the DPs who get paid and then ‘can’t get along,’ pathetic
MB was without a doubt one of the better players we had in that era. But that narrative, the perception of favoritism was always going to be absolutely unavoidable within and outside the team, especially when a player has an inevitable poor spell yet is permanently inked as a starter. Frankly, having a father and son interacting within a locker room, practice etc at that level would suck, feel pretty AYSO…. inject a permanent awkward dynamic and be pretty damn annoying as a player. No WAY you’d ever feel able to speak freely when MB was in the room. Reality is- no matter how high the level of merit- there will ALWAYS be questions with a father in a position of power managing a son. What a horrible position for MB to be in. LoL then his father follows him to Toronto. Anyhow- all of “this” is exactly why it is highly frowned upon… avoided if not prohibited in any professional environment. There is certainly a case to be made now that MB is well past it, the dude’s had cement for feet for more than a few seasons. These same sorts of questions put GB in a deep hole that he’ll never crawl out of with the national team. Merit/his resume, the process were a pretty hard sell when he was hired. As it should be. But that’s likely a huge blind spot- might not be even considered in an org so insular and inbred.
“Klinsmann misused MB as an 8/10 all those years because JK thought MB was the best option?? not even at the 6?”
My remarks about MB90 concern his time at the USMNT working with his Dad as the manager.
By the time JK signed on, the legend of MB90 was already established.
JK had little effect on Mikey’s career arc and he had bigger fish to fry.
As for being misused by JK:
MB90 wanted to be the #6.
JK wanted him to be the box to box guy.
To paraphrase JK, as a #6 MB90 was nothing special but as a box to box, JK felt that MB90 could be a real difference maker.
Bob as the manager was a huge advantage for Michael. How big of an advantage we will never be able to measure but it was not insignificant.
MB90 turned out to be great for an American player but compared to a Top 5 league international midfielder he was a decent, slightly above average player. On a club level Tyler or Weston for example, were equal if not better.
MB90 was a very good on the field coach so to speak, as long as the manager thought like his dad. But if not, that characteristic was not always a good thing.
That does not change the fact that Michael got a lot of help in establishing himself with the USMNT in great part because he was Bob’s son.
On a national team like the USMNT just getting to establish yourself in the first place is a huge part of it.
With that team that once you’re in, you tend to stay in.
In a more recent example, Gregg got a lot of mileage out of the fact that his brother was the most powerful man in the USSF when the decision was made to hire him. And, as Executive Vice-President of Properties and New Ventures at Major League Soccer and Soccer United Marketing, Jay remains a very powerful person in US soccer. Maybe not at Danielle’s level but still…
In Michael’s case the result was useful.
In Gregg’s case the story is not over yet.
Both situations were the result of nepotism. To say otherwise is naïve.
As for the situation at TFC Bob was the manager when they signed Insigne and Bernardeschi.
As it turns out, those two make for quite an interesting, divided locker room.
I’m sure those DP’s were dicks, diva shitbags, prima donnas, etc., all the things you all called Gio and worse. Are Claudio and Danielle anywhere around?
But for the owner it’s very simple.
Bob’s a big boy. He knows the score.
His job was to get those guys, however fucked up they were, all going in one direction and working together.
If he couldn’t do that and it didn’t look like he could, then the owner will either find someone who can or he’s getting rid of the DP’s. It’s too bad all DP’s aren’t wonderful people and great team leaders and wind up getting guys like Bob fired but life isn’t fair.
It’s kind of funny how the narrative changed. When JK was the manager and fans complained about him, Jay Berhalter was the hero standing up for those American players that didn’t want to test themselves in Europe. Certainly some stories have come out that he was not a very nice boss but Jay was never “the most powerful man in US Soccer”, he was at best 3rd when he was chief commercial officer (the business side of the federation not the soccer side). As CCO he had no part of the hiring committee nor any power over people who were in charge of the search. USSF no longer is under contract with SUM so Jay also had no power or say in the rehiring.
JR
“When JK was the manager and fans complained about him, Jay Berhalter was the hero standing up for those American players that didn’t want to test themselves in Europe. ”
I never saw that narrative. And JK never specified Europe. He said some to the effect of be the best you can be.
In his first game managing the USMNT JK is the guy who started Kyle Beckerman and Robbie Rogers. JK is the guy who gave Zusi and Besler their first USMNT starts and brought them to Brazil. He gave caps to Miguel Ibarra of the USL and Jordan Morris of Stanford. He never seem to care where you came from, he cared only if he thought you could help him win.
More intriguing with TFC is the rocky relationship between their two DP’s who apparently were not BFF back in Italy and Bob’s inability to do much with that.
Apparently neither DP is crazy about how Bob and his son interact either. The Bradley nepotism narrative has been so normalized here, we forget that outsiders don’t always get it.
Not great for team unity.
New narrative, Bob replaces Gregg if Copa America goes tits up and Bob finds a back up for Tyler.
Bob was also the sporting director so he brought those DPs in so that’s kind of his fault too.
Can we talk about how it’s 2023 and BB is still doing the nepotism thing with MB his son like he did in 2010 🤦♂️.
It’s only nepotism if it isn’t deserves (by definition) in 2010 Michael definitely deserves to be in that team. Maybe you could argue he hadn’t done much at Herenveen before the summer of 2007, but he did well and the team won. He then followed it up with a 15 g performance in 2007/08 in the Eredivisie. Maybe his time at Mochengladbach wasn’t stellar but in 2006-2014 how many players did we have in the Bundesliga or Serie A?
Won Gold Cup in 2007
JR,
“It’s only nepotism if it isn’t deserves (by definition) in 2010 Michael definitely deserves to be in that team.”
That’s not exactly true. Michael is a nepo baby by any definition.
If your boss, instead of promoting you into the director job that you have been preparing for years, brings in his daughter.
That’s nepotism.
Lets say she is terrible for the first year or two but eventually proves to be great in the job producing even more than maybe you would have.
It’s still nepotism.
“Nepotism is an even narrower form of favoritism. Coming from the Italian word for nephew, it covers favoritism to members of the family. Both nepotism and cronyism are often at work when political parties recruit candidates for public office. ”
“the activity of unfairly giving good jobs or advantages to members of your family”.
The key words are “unfair” and “family”.
Michael sucked when he first started.
Bob was appointed in December of 2006. In Bob’s first three full seasons, Michael got 12 (2007), 11 ( 2008) 15 ( 2009) caps.
I saw most every game Michael played for Bob at the beginning.
He was ridiculously aggressive, a red card waiting to happen, and continually out of position. Yet he played almost every single game the USMNT played, if not all of them.
Had he been Michael Corleone, Michael Jackson or Michael Vick, I can’t see that happening. Would he have eventually won the job on merit or if someone else were the manager?
I don’t know. It makes a huge difference when you know the manager will do everything he can to play you, regardless.
And Bob clearly showed that willingness.
Did Bob stick with MB90 because he , as a coach who knew his player very well, knew he would eventually come good ?
Or did he stick with him because he was his son?
As far as I know Bob never said.
Smart man.
Eventually the controversy died down and Michael won out because he stayed healthy and kept showing up and performing consistently if not always brilliantly.
His competition for what, at the time, was the box to box role, the Weston of his day. kept getting hurt.
We’re talking guys like Mo Edu ( knee injury), Benny Fielhaber (head injury), Sacha Kljestan ( consistency), Rico Clark (skill deficit) and later on Stu Holden ( lawnmower accidents) and Jermaine Jones ( broken shin).
It’s not Bob or Michael’s fault but his competitors gave him the job by default.
Eventually, everyone just got used to Michael always being there. But Bob gave him every possible chance to do so especially at the beginning and that’s nepotism.
As for the 2010 World Cup. had Stu Holden or Jermaine Jones been healthy and fit for the 2010 World Cup, Michael’s 2010 World Cup might have been very different.
Stu was there but he should not have been. Like Gooch, Stu was not really recovered from recent injury. Right after the World Cup he would go on to dominate the EPL briefly until further injury eventually ended his career. If fit and healthy he and JJ could have made a huge difference to what was an already a successful 2010 WC team.
Looking back MB90 benefited by being surrounded with a very good team including, an iconic keeper, a solid defense and midfield, a prolific scorer in Jozy and the two best Americans ever, LD and Clint.
And I say that because once all those guys aged out and left, his limitations were exposed.
Michael played with an extremely talented USMNT and at his peak, played his role very well, which is what you’d expect from the son of a coach. He showed the importance of consistently showing up for work.
But you can’t say he did not benefit greatly from Dad being the manager.
That’s nepotism by any standard.
An intriguing stat for everyone: TFC’s total payroll this year was $27.6 million, tops in the league. LA Galaxy is second at $23.4 million.
The smallest is Philadelphia at $12.8 million. LAFC is right in the middle at $17.4 million.
It’s fascinating to see how little correlation there is in MLS between how the teams spend, and their results on the field.
Yeah that’s really hard to wrap my head around those numbers. Building soccer teams isn’t as easy as just sticking two NBA stars together. Look at Chelsea or PSG. And I wonder when the last time an actual global star was on an MLS Champion? (Bale at LAFC doesn’t count, he barely played.)
More intriguing with TFC is the rocky relationship between their two DP’s who apparently were not BFF back in Italy and Bob’s inability to do much with that.
Apparently neither DP is crazy about how Bob and his son interact either. The Bradley nepotism narrative has been so normalized here, we forget that outsiders don’t always get it.
Not great for team unity.
New narrative, Bob replaces Gregg if Copa America goes tits up and Bob finds a back up for Tyler.