

Posted by

Armen Bedakian ,

January 13, 2014 Email

Armen Bedakian Twitter @ArmenBedakian Read this on your iPhone/iPad or Android device





A bloody big deal? You bet!



Toronto FC announced on Monday the signing of a pair of superstar Designated Players, Jermain Defoe and Michael Bradley. The former had been chased by the club for a number of months, the latter, falling on Toronto FC’s lap out of left field. Wrapping up these signings, Toronto FC become a powerhouse club on paper, and certainly garnered plenty of talk, both positive and negative, from fans and media alike.



Yet during the months of negotiations for Jermain Defoe, Toronto FC was simultaneously talking with Italian international forward Alberto Gilardino. The Genoa player was linked with a multimillion dollar move to the Canadian MLS outfit but a deal never panned out. Toronto FC’s management duo of general manager Tim Bezbatchenko and MLSE president Tim Leiweke spoke with RedNation Online about Gilardino’s potential move to MLS.



“You know, we spoke to that club (Genoa) and we heard from his agent that [Gilardino] might be interested,” said Bezbatchenko. “Certainly, a player of that caliber, it’s not one that you take lightly. Were we interested? Yeah, any player of that caliber we’re going to look at closely. For us, Jermain [Defoe] was number one.”



“We spent a lot of time down in Italy, we spent a lot of time talking to clubs and players in Italy, and I have great respect for Gilardino,” said Leiweke. “I think he’s a beautiful, fantastic player and a great striker, a great finisher.”



“I think our goal here eventually is to find the right Italian player to come join us,” said Leiweke.



The right Italian player but not one right now. The club signed three new Designated Players but has built strong relationships in Italy, and especially with A.S. Roma.



“Michael Bradley is coming from Roma, so that conversation started down there, but eventually we’d like to get one of those guys,” said Leiweke. “With Jermain Defoe, you have an abundance of riches, and we had to make a decision.”



The negotiation for Gilardino moved passed the initial stages at around the same pace as Defoe, building up to what seemed like a final choice between the two. Bezbatchenko says this is a normal part of negotiations, though.



“You have to have multiple players that you’re looking for because you never know when the player’s going to decide if he’s not going to come but you could tell from the beginning that Jermain was coming in,” said Bezbatchenko.



“Like I said, you have to have a bunch of options and it can’t be that you leave them all at stage one,” Bezbatchenko continued. “You have to keep talking, and make sure everyone’s on the same page. There were talks, but like I said, Jermain was our guy.”



However, a deal not done doesn’t mean there was no benefit to the club spending time in Italy.



“Time will ultimately reward us for the efforts and relationships we’re currently doing with the Serie A clubs,” said Leiweke. “And although it was a little disappointing, because we’d love to have [Gilardino], obviously we’re in a situation where we can only have three DPs.”



Three DPs means Toronto FC is currently over the roster limit. Bezbatchenko said that the club doesn’t need to be roster compliant just yet, and with a SuperDraft around the corner, the club management’s focus will be on picking up a young player or dealing the 15th overall selection. Matias Laba is the odd-man out at the club right now, though Bezbatchenko is working on keeping the young Argentine midfielder at Toronto FC.



“Matias is an exceptional player, so we’re going to do everything we can to keep him, but we’re going to continue to evaluate our roster,” said Bezbatchenko. “We’re working with the league on that, we’ll go from here. We have some time.”



On Thursday, Toronto FC heads to the MLS SuperDraft. With one first round pick to its name, the club will look to continue adding pieces to its roster before the start of the season in March.



“We’ve had our guys looking at and observing players all season,” said Bezbatchenko. “It’s not something where we just go down to the combine and watch a couple games and you pick your first round draft pick. We have our needs, and you evaluate players based on the season and in the combine and you go from there.”



Bezbatchenko is a young general manager but he is making the biggest moves around the league like a seasoned pro.



“I’m young, but you measure your life in experiences,” said Bezbatchenko. “At the MLS office, I can’t even think of the number of contracts I’ve been a part of. If you measure me in age I might be young but in experience I think I’m right up there.”



“We want to do what it takes to win, frankly, that’s full stop, period on that sentence,” said Bezbatchenko. “We don’t think of it as “A” and “B,” we might have said it but in terms of talent, they’re all “A”-s, right? Let’s not kid ourselves; these are some great, great players. If we felt like that was going to make us a better club, yeah we would look at it, but like I said, it was really about getting Jermain down here and going from there.”



“It was over the moon,” said Leiweke. “This was the best scenario humanly possible and we ended up getting the three guys we put on the top of our lists. We wanted a young kid and Gilberto fits that mold; we wanted a true goal scorer that had played at the top levels, including the Champions League, and were preferred that that player come from the EPL because of the style of play here; then, we wanted a true playmaker that was more of a creative field general. We were able to get, I think, the three best that were available and out there.”



“Would we have loved Messi? Sure. He’s not coming,” said Leiweke. “At the end of the day, if you look at our list, these were the top three names on the top of each of those wants and we were very fortunate we were able to hit a home run on each one.”