By Tony Edwards – San Jose, CA (Jan 20, 2015) US Soccer Players – Buried in an ESPN MLS round up by Jeff Carlisle was the news that two MLS teams held their own combine before the draft. “The club held a private combine in conjunction with the Seattle Sounders in Las Vegas earlier this month….”

In this case, the club in question are the wallflowers known as Toronto FC, who are taking as many routes to success as they can. To wit, the franchise had three first round draft picks last week, they are expanding their stadium, and arguably they’ve made two of the more intelligent signings of the offseason in Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco. They’ve also seen Kansas City and Houston exit their conference, meaning a first playoff berth ought to be a given this year, even if we’ve heard this before.

A private combine? Clubs presumably paying real money to work out players themselves and treating the official combine as what it is, a shoe-company sponsored showcase. Before long, people might mistake MLS for a league where franchises actually care about winning and putting a good product on the field, not just limiting player movement.

Private workouts have gone on as long as the league has been around, but here we have two teams committing to putting their resources into who shows up on the field. If only that was true for many of the other 18 soccer clubs.

One reason for having a private combine is that college players are still valuable to MLS. This way a team or teams can avoid, or at least partially sidestep, the circus of the main MLS Combine and see how players might fit into your system. It prevents what we heard more than once during the SuperDraft, that a lackluster combine means a player falls down the draft order. Really? From one week in Fort Lauderdale compared to a college career that got him to this point? That makes sense?

Having another separate team-centered combine means another, and arguably better, look at a player. Teams can at least consider players who for whatever reason maybe didn’t have a great season or who might be exploring other options.

For a player, the opportunity to show your talents in front of just one or two teams is important. It’s probably worth significantly more to the player than, say, subjecting himself to such stunts as letting the league’s website record and broadcast how high you can jump or how fast you can sprint. Then there are the unavoidable ‘me first’ training games with players you barely know (if at all), whose first focus, like yours, isn’t winning but showing well.

So good for Seattle, Toronto, and any other MLS team seeing through the limits of the MLS college identification system. All aspects of the game are competitive, and that includes giving your team a scouting edge.

The other news from Toronto this week, the signing of Giovinco to a four-year deal, is just as interesting. Whereas we thought Serie A took up shop in Montreal, we see Toronto signing a 27-year old experienced player who even a few weeks ago was scoring goals in the Coppa Italia for Juventus. Given that MLS hasn’t been known as a league for players who emphasized skill over physicality (read: Giovinco is probably the first player nicknamed ‘atomic ant’ in MLS), the squad being shaped by former USMNT player Greg Vanney and TFC GM Tim Bezbatchenko not only looks much different than it did last season, it should play differently.

What we see, at least now, in Toronto, is management with a plan and a style of how they want the team to play. Even better, they have the resources, apparently, to make it happen.

The idea of Jozy Altidore seeing passes from Michael Bradley and Giovinco is an appealing one. It’s also about 180 degrees from the Ryan Nelsen style of play. Nelsen might end up being a very effective coach, but Toronto may be re-inventing themselves as a team you look forward to watching, rather than a team you watch. That’s a difference some of the other MLS teams might try taking to heart.

Tony Edwards is a soccer writer from the Bay Area.

More from Tony Edwards: