CANADIAN STAR COMES HOME ...
Deal for De Rosario the perfect reward for TFC fans' love
TFC BLOG
De Rosario File
Age: 30 (May 15, 1978)
Hometown: Scarborough
Position: Midfield
Pro honours: Eight seasons (regular season: 186 games, 51 goals; playoffs: 22 games, 5 goals); two-time MLS Cup MVP; three-time MLS all-star; four-time MLS Cup winner.
International: Canada: 53 caps, 15 goals; 2000 Gold Cup winner; three-time Canadian player of the year.
Dec 13, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (7)
CATHAL KELLY
After three years of one-sided romance, the management of Toronto FC has finally shown the team's supporters some real love. The addition of Dwayne De Rosario – local boy, outsized talent – is the transaction equivalent of a big, sloppy kiss.
The native of Scarborough was welcomed home yesterday afternoon, gift-wrapped from Houston. He was swapped for defender Julius James and allocation money, which FC has spent the last two seasons stockpiling like Scrooge.
In most exchanges of talent, there is a period of sober observation that should follow before either side is declared a winner. Let's chuck that out the window and declare this, hands down, the best transaction for a Toronto franchise since Leeman et al for Gilmour and friends, or Carter and Alomar for McGriff and Fernandez. Not that Houston must lose here, but Toronto has already won in every sense.
This is the sort of transaction that can transform a franchise, and a fan base along with it. FC's GM Mo Johnston has taken a great deal of heat in this space for his sit-on-your-hands approach to sports management, but he deserves nothing but congratulations this morning for engineering the I'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it deal nobody really believed they'd ever see. Maybe all those coy, come hithers issued by De Rosario whenever he floated through town on international duty actually worked. Maybe Johnston has finally embraced the idea that a North American team requires North American talent. Whatever did it, it's injected some much needed buzz into a side that was beginning to slide out of the reckoning of sports editors and omnivorous fans across this city.
How does this switch work? Let me count the ways.
One, Toronto FC has been buried under their domestic quota for both years of its existence. On a 28-man roster that must be at least half Canadian, FC has never found more than two domestic regulars. De Rosario's inclusion – in the place of a Trinidadian to boot – eases that pressure enormously.
Two, De Rosario arrives not as a pricey designated player, but as a regularly paid schmo included under the roughly $2.3 million (all figures U.S.) league-financed salary cap. Last year, he earned $325,000, which would make him FC's highest paid player. And it's a bargain, folks.
Three, he is, in a word, really freaking good. Those who remember him streaking in from the left to pot a long-distance screamer in Canada's friendly versus Costa Rica at BMO Field a couple of summers ago will attest to that. He is probably the second best Canadian player, period, this side of Deportivo's Julian de Guzman. He's already won the MLS Cup four times. That's four more than the entire FC roster combined. With apologies to Amado Guevara, he is the first bona fide star Toronto FC has possessed.
Four, and maybe most importantly, he arrives at a key moment for this team.
While ticket sales continue briskly and stadium expansion sits on the lips of MLSE suits, nobody seemed to notice the $12-beer-buying natives getting restless.
Two years of dismal play will do that to you. But De Rosario's arrival promises a sporting rebirth and a new injection of interest from the local public. It's a huge win, easily the biggest in franchise history.
