The flash point today (to bring you up to speed in case you haven’t heard) is the now confirmed fact that TFC has made a significant offer to our favorite midfielder Julian de Guzman. First note had the deal as a short term, $4 million dollars to play 1/2 a season with TFC. That, my friends, is a Fuck Load o’ Money – the FLOM in the title.

This was followed by a post by Kristian Jack at The Score that said the TFC deal is 90% done. Additionally, Jack is reporting the deal is actually a long term 3 1/2 year deal worth $10 million dollars. That would make this deal second only to David Beckham in the MLS world. Now, while Jack says interest in Europe is drying up, I find that hard to believe. I mean, Spurs have been after De Guzman for years and now they suddenly are not interested?

At any rate, my take is right along the lines of LordBob. As a fan of the MNT, I can’t see this as a great thing. I am firmly in the country before club camp, a naive and idealistic perspective I realize but one that I hold onto.

Putting all of our national players into one MLS basket is a horrible move for the nats.

Maybe I wouldn’t feel quite this strongly about JDG’s move if TFC had a sizable presence on the MNT for the largest international soccer event on our dance card – the Gold Cup. But we all know that story.

Or maybe I would be a tad more excited if the MLS did what every other league in the world does and honoured international dates. But how willing will TFC be to release their Designated Player for a “meaningless” friendly when we can’t even get a contingent of TFC Canadians out for the Gold Cup?  Think TFC and her fans will be happy to give up JDG, DeRo, Serioux, Ali Gerba and possibly others for national duty when they are in the throes of chasing the MLS Cup?

And here is the major problem for me. TFC, the MLS, the CSA, FIFA, CONCACAF, the whole group of them are all setting up what few quality soccer players this country has for a club vs. country war that helps no one and hurts the sport.

There are not many of us soccer fans and we are already starting to turn on each other. Just read some of the comments around many of the blog posts on JDG. There is a lot of “who cares about the MNT” and this worries me. Yes, we all know the state of the MNT and the CSA. It’s easy to look upon much of the recent history of international soccer in this country and go, who cares? But to the Canadian in me, that is akin to saying that the beaver is a useless rodent. Maybe so, but dammit if that useless rodent doesn’t define who the hell I am at some crazy nationalistic level.

At any rate, we’ll know soon whether JDG will choose TFC or not. He has said he expects a deal regarding his club situation to be made by the end of the week. My take is not, but you can never underestimate the power of the buck.

And the beaver, by the way, is a fine and noble animal worthy of our respect.

After much speculation as to where he would end up, David Edgar has finally left Newcastle and signed a 4 year deal with EPL newcomers Burnley.

As one comment on The Score blog put it, “that’s 1 year in the Prem and 3 in Championship”. Burnley has put in place an aggressive salary cap which puts it squarely in the bottom of the Prem as far as compensation is concerned. While it is great that teams take a stand on ridiculous salaries (yeah, we’re talking about you, Cristiano Ronaldo), you know that Burnley is going to have a tough time attracting a lot of high caliber talent for this season. But who knows. Wigan was able to stay up and do well a few seasons ago under similar circumstances when everyone was expecting them to drop after a season.

One definite plus for Edgar and fans of the Canadian MNT (should he ever get capped) is that it looks like he will be getting first team experience on a regular basis.

Edgar’s agent Barry MacLean told Ontario newspaper The Record:

“I`d say he`s pretty happy. We are looking for him to play regularly at this stage of his career. For him to play regular first-team football is critical for him.”

Meanwhile, Josh Simpson is leaving Kaiserslautern in Germany and joining (Google translate) newly promoted club Manisaspor in Turkey. You have to think after a few games in the Turkish league Josh will be very well equipped to handle playing in harsh conditions, like Central America.

Other Canadian who have made the move to new clubs in the past week include Kevin Harmse from TFC to Chivas. Harmse requested the trade. Moving back to TFC from SPL’s Dundee United is Chris Pozniak.

Still waiting for the big news about Julian de Guzman (and do not believe the TFC rumour) and his fate at Deportivo. That will be the next big move I’ll be expecting.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Defender Edgar swaps Newcastle for Burnley (guardian.co.uk)
• Burnley’s £15k per week salary cap bucks football’s freakonomics (telegraph.co.uk)
• Burnley sign Newcastle United defender Edgar (soccernet.espn.go.com)

Excuse me for being just a bit pissed off about this. I mean, I knew DeRo and Serioux weren’t going to make the trip, but that doesn’t mean I am happy with their decisions. Or Hirshfeld’s either. I mean, for better or for worse, this is still the premier international competition on this continent and three of our key players are sitting it out.

Let’s look at this scenario from a different perspective. What would the reaction be in England if Frank Lampard, John Terry and David James decided they wouldn’t play for England in the European Championships? Damn straight the phones at 5 Live would be on fire from indignant footie fans wondering why three national team starters were giving the continental championship a pass.

I was a pretty happy footie fan when it was announced that DeRo and Serioux were going to join TFC. I felt like Toronto was going to finally do what a lot of Canadian fans had been hoping for – help build a national team. Okay, yeah sure, the pragmatic business side of me knows that I can’t expect a professional organization to have any other mandate other than to make money, but I still had this naive belief that having Canadian players playing on Canadian teams would actually improve our chances of winning competitions like the Gold Cup. Well, that belief was shaken today. Not broken, but shaken.

I want to blame the MLS and their fucked up policy of playing through this (and virtually any FIFA sanctioned) competition, but then I see that other MLS teams have given up their talent for the Gold Cup. Will Johnson, Dejan Jakovic (who is the feature of a nice writeup at the MLS site today)  and André Hainault have all been released from their clubs, so the MLS  can’t be all at fault here. TFC, in their defense, did release Kevin Harmse and Ali Gerba (although can he actually be released if he hasn’t been signed yet?), so I guess expecting them to gut the team and piss off the ticket paying fan base by removing two key players in DeRo and Serioux was just a bit too much.

I suppose I should feel like we are in good company. It appears that Mexico is sending a B team (although any B team that consists of Giovani Dos Santos and Carlos Vela has to be considered a B+ team) and speculation is that the US roster will also be light on big names. Which is all beginning to make me feel like the Gold Cup is turning into a bit of an irrelevant joke this year.

On the bright side, I do like this roster. We have a nice balance of experience and youth and in it I can see the core for the next round of WCQ. If the young kids dazzle, and we get a great performance from a goalkeeper who currently isn’t even practicing with a team, let alone starting, then we might just have a shot. And I like that Paul Stalteri is looking for a shot at redemption. However I would have loved it if there were 3 other names on it.

CANADA
1- G- Greg Sutton | unattached / sans club
2- D- Adrian Cann | DEN / Esbjerg fB
3- D/M- Mike Klukowski | BEL / Club Brugge KV
4- D- André Hainault | USA / Houston Dynamo
6- M- Julian de Guzman | ESP / Deportivo La Coruna
5- D/F- Kevin McKenna | GER / 1. FC Köln
7- D/M- Paul Stalteri | GER / Borussia Mönchengladbach
8- M- Marcel de Jong | NED / Roda JC
9- F- Ali Gerba | unattached / sans club
10- M/F- Willi Johnson | USA / Real Salt Lake
11- D- Richard Hastings | SCO / Inverness CT
12- M- Issey Nakajima-Farran | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
13- M- Atiba Hutchinson | DEN / F.C. København
14- D- Dejan Jakovic | USA / DC United
15- M/F- Josh Simpson | GER / FC Kaiserslautern
16- F- Simeon Jackson | ENG / Gillingham FC
17- D/M- Jaime Peters | ENG / Ipswich Town FC
18- G- Joshua Wagenaar | ENG / Yeovil Town
19- D/M- Kevin Harmse | CAN / Toronto FC
20- M- Patrice Bernier | DEN / FC Nordsjælland
21- M- Chris Pozniak | SCO / Dundee FC
22- G- Kenny Stamatopoulos | NOR / FC Lyn Oslo (on loan from Tromsø I.L.)
23- F- Charles Gbeke | CAN / Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Will we see Jim Brennan training in national colours again?

Found this info poking around Jim Brennan’s spanky new website this morning.  Now, maybe I missed the official announcements, but I thought the problem Jim had with the team was Dale Mitchell and that once he was gone we would see Jimmy return to the fold. But there can be no doubt with the language on the site that Jim Brennan has retired from international competition. Note the final paragraph on his Team Canada page:

Now retired from Team Canada, Brennan looks back proudly on his career playing for his nation.

And then check out the language used to describe the WCQ in Mexico last fall. You’ll have to dig around the page to find the source as his new website is designed in such a way that I cannot link directly to the quote.

Jimmy’s last start and final cap for Canada came in the southern Mexican city of Tuxtla Gutierrez.

I’d say that is pretty definitive language. But if I recall correctly last fall I thought Brennan’s position was that he had not shut the door on Canada. Here is what Brennan said at the time.

“I spoke to officials here at Toronto FC, my family and friends, and decided that it was best that I step down from the national team while the current manager is in place,” Brennan confirmed to reporters on Tuesday.

“That’s not to say I won’t play for Canada again, it’s just that there’s a lot going on that I don’t agree with, I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.”

I would have thought that with Mitchell gone there may have been a place for Jim in the team and (wrongly) assumed he would be called for the Gold Cup.

I’m not surprised if he really has hung up the kit for the nats. There was a lot of bad blood flowing last fall, much of it swirling around Jim. Perhaps there was enough spilled that he finally decided to wash his hands  of the whole MNT mess.

Or perhaps it is just time and he is following TFC teamate Carl Robinson, who announced his retirement from the Welsh national team earlier this week.

I’m not sure of all the machinations going on here (maybe someone who is more of a reporter type might be able to dig up some more definitive news about Brennan’s staus. Joe? Duane?  Ben?)  But it looks to me like Jim Brennan has retired from Canada. And we really didn’t have a chance to say goodbye.

Photo credit From Flickr by 604Plonker. Used under Creative Commons license.

Arsenal plays tomorrow, and I have just painfully admitted that I don’t care. Actually, I just lied. It wasn’t painful.

Something has happened to me this season. Something has changed. No, Arsenal, I don’t think it’s you. It’s me. Really.

Oh I am not saying you are not partially to blame. We all know it takes two to make a relationship work and, let’s face it – you have been hot and cold for the past while. Sure, there has been the occasional spark, but lately, well…sigh.

Let’s face it. 12 years is a long time and we have some good memories. A double in 2002, Champions League final in 2006, goodbye to Highbury, hello Emirates. It’s been a helluva ride. But truth be know, there is someone else and perhaps my fair weather bandwagon fanboy affair with you has come to an end.

I realized this on Tuesday. You were getting ready to tangle with Roma in the Champions League, an event I would have been anticipating for weeks. But no. On Tuesday I was preoccupied with something else, another piece of footie news.

TFC had signed Canadian international Adrian Serioux.

Once I got over the shock that I actually cared more about Serioux going to TFC than Arsenal playing Roma, things began to feel different. And it didn’t take long  for me to realize something – pro soccer in North America is winning me over.

I care about TFC.

Okay, care may be a bit harsh, because I always cared about how they would do, being the flag bearers for major level soccer in this country (easy there, Ultras – I’m getting there). Maybe put another way, I am beginning to form a relationship with them, thanks in no small part to the signing of DeRo and Serioux. My Canuck heart is starting to swell with the thoughts that we might just have the makings of something Canadian here. And, as someone who originally lived in Alberta, admitting that something good might be happening in Toronto is not something I say lightly.

DeRo. Serioux. Sutton. Brennan. 4 Canadians who will play prominent roles for TFC this season.

And then there is Montreal. 55,000 fans in Olympic Stadium. Impact defeat Santos of Mexico 2-0 in the first leg of the CONCACAF Champions League quarter-final. Sure, the stadium was papered, but from all accounts the crowd was knowledgeable and supportive, and completely dwarfed any Mexican presence in the Big O. Now, the MNT cynic might say where the hell were these people in September, but right now I prefer to believe that September was one of the reasons why 55,000 turned out. Maybe the CSA learned something from the Honduras debacle.

What does this endless rambling mean? I don’t know. But this is my blog and I can endlessly ramble if I want to. What I do know is that I suddenly have a more than just passing interest in professional soccer in North America. And for the first time ever, I have 2 dates in my soccer calendar that have never been there before. March 21 (TFC season opener vs Kansas City) and March 5th (Impact vs. Santos). And it makes me feel good.

Photo credit: TFC’s Inaugural Home Match against KC by dreistreifen. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.