Talking Footy with Farqy.

Our interview with The Score’s Footy Show associate, Will Farquharson.

The Toronto FC is back with a new coach and a new outlook on their fifth season. But will it make any difference? Talking with The Score‘s Will Farquharson (no relation. Yes, really.), I learned about what to expect from the team as they draw inspiration from the unrelenting support of their fans.

Will: TFC blew up their front office this past off-season and brought in a new Dutch coach, Aron Winter. He comes from Ajax, a very historically significant club from Amsterdam. They invented this snazzy style of play coined “Total Football” in the 70′s and was predicated on a very fluent game of soccer. So really, the idea is to install that mentality into TFC which has played pretty much the least fluent game of all time. They also got rid of their best player in franchise history, and one of the best Canadian players of all time: Dwayne De Rosario. He basically wanted more money, and instead of doing that, we shipped him off to New York. He is aging and with the team’s new rebuilding mentality, it didn’t fit.

Pony: Explain this “Total Football” strategy more.

Will: Total Football means that one player in one position can move into another player’s position and keep playing with the trust that the other player falls back to cover his original position. This way, the game is fluent and always moving, and every position is always covered.

Pony: So what do you think the team as a whole is in for this season?

Will: Looking at the standings so far, TFC has 1 win, 1 loss and 3 draws. I think that sums up how things will go this year. As the team grows into its new philosophy, there will be bumps along the way such as the loss to Vancouver. But they have enough of an experienced core set of players among all the newcomers to be competitive in the league. Unfortunately, it may not be enough to reach the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. But time will tell, it’s still really early in the season.

Pony: What teams do you think have the right approach? What changes should TFC be making right now?

Will: The thing with the MLS is that it has lots of parity, so lots of teams have a good approach. Because it’s a lower-tier league in terms of world football, the salaries and overall quality of play is much lower than other leagues. So the best approach a team can have is good management. TFC didn’t have that for years, there was plenty of internal squabbles that really crippled the team on and off the pitch. But they’ve made the right change for now, and for the future with a new management team that (hopefully) will remain trouble-free. You can tell they’re trying to rid all problems by dealing De Rosario and his contract issues away, even though he’s the best player the team has ever seen. The rest will just take time.

Pony: And what’s with the fans being so die-hard? Is that something Toronto specific or is that just how the world of soccer works?

Will: Toronto’s die-hard fans are a microcosm of the soccer world, where things are even more die-hard in many other places. We’re obviously a multi-cultural city with people from all around the world and we bring those soccer-loving passions to the stadium with us every game. Now some of that has died down since the team first came to town after some pretty poor results, but the passion is still on par, if not stronger, than pretty much anything other than the Leafs in this city.

Pony: And what about you? Will you be playing much soccer this summer?

Will: Absolutely! I play soccer year-round, rarely ever do I miss a week!

For more soccer updates and info, follow @WillFarq on Twitter, or check out The Score.com. And now, a gratuitous photo of David Beckham about to bend it at last night’s TFC game.

– Emma Farquharson.

Talking Footy with Farqy., 5.0 out of 5 based on 3 ratings