

Posted by

Armen Bedakian ,

December 2, 2013 Email

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Remember Andrea Lombardo?



The ponytailed Toronto FC forward was one of the first names in the club’s eight-year history. He wore the very first #20 shirt in club history, one that was later shared with Amado Guevara and Matias Laba. He retired from the game of football last year, after spending time in the Canadian Soccer League.



RedNation Online caught up with Lombardo and talked about life after Toronto FC, working for York University, Italian-Canadian football, and his favourite memories from his playing time.



“It’s been good,” said Lombardo. “It was a bit of an adjustment, you know, getting used to not being in that locker room atmosphere anymore. The day in, day out, locker room experience, the joking around and all that stuff is definitely something that I miss.”



Lombardo started playing for the Canadian youth national team at the age of 14. At 17, he moved to Italy and played for Atalanta. He returned to Canada in 2007 to join Toronto FC. Nowadays, you can find Lombardo at York University as a student recruitment officer.



The former Toronto FC forward played for the York Lions and graduated with a degree in communication studies.



York is one of the strongest soccer schools in the province and in the country. The team has won multiple OUA west division titles, and have won championships in the provincial and national level, too. This season, York defeated Ryerson in the OUA Finals and won the OUA title again.



“It’s a credit to not only this year but really year in and year out,” said Lombardo, of York’s soccer program. “Carmine Isacco, who was my youth coach growing up when I was a kid in Toronto, deserves a lot of the credit because he does a great job recruiting players to the university and giving them that chance to study and be a student-athlete.”



York’s roster has plenty of familiar faces for Toronto FC fans: former Toronto FC full team member Matt Stinson joins Jonathan Lao, Dylan Sacramento and Mark-Anthony Kaye in the championship-winning team.



“The thing that really set the guys apart this year was that they really had a strong team environment,” said Lombardo. “Carm preaches that a lot; one individual player is not more important than the team and you win as a team and you lose as a team.”



Before joining York, Lombardo played for Toronto FC during the team’s inaugural season in 2007. He appeared in 17 league games and while he didn’t score, he was certainly a name familiar to the fans. Head coach John Carver released him in the team’s second season.



“They were looking to sign a player and unfortunately I was deemed the guy who had to give up the roster spot because there was only a certain amount,” Lombardo explained, when asked what the circumstances were surrounding his release.



“I was disappointed, since in the first season, I played a lot. I’ve experienced this before, when you change coaches; some coaches see you, and some coaches don’t. I guess John Carver might not have been my biggest fan playing-wise and I didn’t get as much playing time as I did under Mo.”



Lombardo still follows the team closely. He says he’s a Toronto boy “through and through,” and sees improvement in the current roster.



“There’s some stability in the club,” said Lombardo. “It’s tough to build a winner when there’s a revolving door of players and coaches over the first seven years. You really need to establish a coaching staff and a core group of players and every year add one or two or three pieces to that core group whereas up until now it’s been 10, 15 players in, 10, 15 players out, new coach every season.”



“It’s bittersweet though, watching them now,” he continued. “I’m 26 now, and usually 26 to 28, that’s when players are in the peak of their careers. You don’t want to dwell too much on what could have been.”



Lombardo spoke of the TFC Academy, wishing that such a program existed when he was growing up in the city. He credits the academy for creating a professional atmosphere in the city, something that he believes is a crucial transition for young footballers.



“When I was 17 and I moved to Italy to play soccer, that was the biggest transition. Playing youth club soccer here to going there and even though it was youth, it was professional. You couldn’t make up an excuse and say ‘hey, I’ve got too much homework and I can’t go to practice.’ That didn’t exist over there.”



Lombardo is now a fan of the team, and says he regularly watches the games. He’s noticed the shift in the stadium’s atmosphere, too.



“We’ve seen over the last couple years, and maybe it’s because I was playing with them, but the atmosphere in the stadium hasn’t been the same. It’s kind of like a relationship when you get a new boyfriend or a girlfriend, it’s all roses at the start but then people want a winner on the field. The fans deserve it because they’ve stuck by TFC for a long time.”



His former teammates Jim Brennan and Danny Dichio are now coaches at the club. Lombardo has been keeping up with his locker room pals, too.



“I’ve seen them a couple times because after TFC I was playing with Carmine in the CSL. We had played against Dichio’s team and Jimmy’s team a couple times. In terms of coaching, as leaders within the dressing room during my time at TFC, I can’t think of anybody better than them. They were positive examples in that locker room for those young players.”



Toronto FC has been involved in a pair of big-name Designated Player negotiations as of late. The two names most linked to the club is Tottenham Hotspur forward Jermain Defoe and Genoa’s Alberto Gilardino. We asked Lombardo what he thought about an Italian international like Gilardino joining his former team.



“I’m a little biased because I am Italian-Canadian,” said Lombardo. “I’d love for Gilardino to sign for TFC. Trying to take a step back and take a look at it objectively, he’s a World Cup winner. He would bring not only goalscoring experience at TFC he would bring tremendous leadership and that winning attitude in the locker room.”



“Winning is contagious and the more people you have that are leaders and that want to win, the better it is for the club. I’d love to see him shoot up for TFC one day, and I think he could score a tonne of goals in the league, too,” he continued.



“If you look at a guy like Marco Di Vaio, who is the same type of striker, he’s transitioned well to MLS and he’s scoring a lot.”



In a recent article published in the Corriere Canadese, an Italian-Canadian newspaper, a point of discussion was the fact that Toronto FC has yet to sign an Italian player. Lombardo understands the sentiment.



“I mean, if you look at the statistics, just off the top of my head, England and Britain has really been where TFC has mostly gone for their players, whereas if you look at a team like the Montreal Impact, they do like picking their players from Italy,” said Lombardo. “I believe that Serie A and the Italian system is the best league in the world; it’s tactical and it takes a certain type of intelligent and disciplined player to succeed in Serie A, Serie B or in the Italian system.”



“If you look at just the way Italian players are, they’re always tactical, and Italian defending is world-renowned, so pluck a couple of defenders like the Impact have done,” he suggested. “But, Caldwell has done excellent for TFC this year. I guess if you look at the signings over the last seven years they have primarily been from Britain but I don’t think they should cater generally just for the communities in Toronto; they should be looking to find the best players possible, no matter what their nationality is, to put the best product on the field – whatever it takes to win!”



Lombardo was also a member of the Canadian national team, who have now slipped to 114 in FIFA’s World Rankings. Lombardo believes the national team needs time to grow in order to succeed once more.



“It’s tough to pinpoint and it’s tough to answer the question of what’s wrong with the Canadian national team,” said Lombardo. “I’d say we’re on the right track. It might take some losing and some years of frustration to reap the rewards, but the fact that we’re setting up the academy systems with Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto FC is going to be beneficial in the future for our country’s national team.”



Lombardo recalls his time at Toronto FC fondly. When we asked him what his favourite memory of the club was, he credited the entirety of the experience, and finds joy in little moments.



“I loved going to training and I came back from a guaranteed professional contract with Italy with Atalanta to play for TFC because I really had TFC in my heart. I was really proud to play for them. Up until this day – not too much now because I cut my ponytail – when I visit high schools to recruit students for York, some of the grade 12 students will be like ‘oh, we saw you back in the day when you played for TFC!’ It’s weird to think it’s been six years now, so it has been a while, and I guess all those kids have grown up!”



“If I had to pick one moment, though, it would be the seat cushion moment when Dichio scored that first goal and the entire stadium went nuts,” he said.



So, is Andrea Lombardo happy with life after Toronto FC?



“Oh, yeah, definitely. I can’t complain – I’m healthy, I’ve got a good family, nieces and nephews that run around and keep me going. I’ve been involved with coaching and I still play in the OSL with Vaughan. We’ll actually be playing off against TFC academy this year because we got promoted to the highest division in the OSL! I do it to keep the pounds off but it’s been fun!”



I joked that he’ll finally end up scoring against Toronto FC and catch the eye of Ryan Nelsen.



“I don’t know if he’ll be too happy about that one!” said Lombardo with a chuckle.



You can check out more from the “Life After Toronto FC” series on RedNation Online. We spoke with York Lions defender Matt Stinson, as well as a recent club departure in Logan Emory.