Nobody took a shot at Jermain Defoe directly, but members of the Toronto FC front office, as well as newly named captain Michael Bradley, let it be known that there were serious and major problems with team chemistry last season.

In fact, Bradley said that he knew “pretty quickly” during the 2014 season that the lack of leadership was “A Bloody Big Deal” (my words, not his) — even when they were winning games and Defoe (who is now with Sunderland in the Premier League) was scoring.

Bradley, TFC president and CEO Tim Leiweke, GM Tim Bezbatchenko, head coach Greg Vanney and COO David Hopkinson were unusually forthright and passionate during a meeting with the Sun on Tuesday in terms of what went wrong last season and what the organization needed (and needs) to do to finally get into the playoffs after eight years of futility.

Vanney, for example, said there “weren’t enough men on the team” last season. Bradley was equally as outspoken, adding that they had “too many little kids” on the roster. Clearly shots at some of their departed colleagues.

“We had a team that was, in terms of quality and in terms of talent — on certain days when things went our way — we could win games,” said Bradley. “And we could win some big games. But even on those days, that margin was so small. We never — and Tim and I spoke about this a number of times throughout the year — we never had that day where it clicked in terms of mentality, in terms of the performance where we played a team off the field and we walked off the field at BMO and we won 3-0, 4-0. Good teams are able to do that over the course of the season.

“And so every step along the way was hard work for us last year. Everything. And, to me, it still comes down to the fact we didn’t have the right group. We had too many little kids. We got along, it was a good locker room, there were no issues. But in terms of real competitors, fighters, winners, guys who came in every day ready to do everything they could to help the group move forward, we didn’t have enough. And so for me, of all the things that we’ve done in this off-season, that is the part that I’m most excited about. Now there is a group of guys here who have been around, who know what it means to compete, who know what it means to win.

“At the end of the day, that’s not going to guarantee us anything,” the U.S. international added. “We’re all very, very, very aware of that. The best teams around the world have the quality of a team that can win championships, but they have the mentality of a team that is fighting at the bottom. They have that chip on their shoulder, they have that hardness about them and that’s what we have to do.

“We were so nice last year, we were too naive,” Bradley continued. “There are going to be days in training this year where things get out of hand. But that is something that you need on certain days — that passion, that emotion, that confrontation. Because you grow from that. Good teams have strong personalities, and not just one of them, a lot of them.

“This is the part I’m most excited about, to be on a team where there are more guys that have the commitment, and the mentality and the determination that I do to win.”

Bezbatchenko and Leiweke said it was important this off-season, when TFC went after new Designated Players and filled out the roster via the draft, transfers and trades, that they picked up players known for their leadership qualities as much as their skill, players who were committed to Toronto long-term (as Defoe clearly wasn’t).

“Benoit (Cheyrou) was a captain, Damien (Perquis) was a captain, Michael was captain,” said Leiweke.

The man Bradley replaced — former Scottish international Steven Caldwell — was obviously a captain as well. Leiweke said good teams are led by more than one or two players and stripping Caldwell of the arm band wasn’t a commentary on his leadership. The team just needed to make a change in that regard.

Leiweke, Vanney and Bezbatchenko said they sat down with Bradley pretty much as soon as the 2014 campaign ended, after TFC finished a disappointing seventh in the Eastern Conference, to start picking his brain as to what went wrong and how to fix it.

“We are, all of us, to a man pissed off about last year and I think this has been an off-season of purpose,” said Leiweke. “I’ve never had a player yell at me as much as I’ve been yelled at this off-season by our captain (Bradley).”

Vanney said he knew the writing was on the wall in a bad way last season when Bezbatchenko famously challenged the team to “take it up a notch,” and the response was tepid.

“I think we had the talent last year to maybe go to the playoffs, I don’t think we had the mentality to make it into the playoffs,” said Vanney, who replaced Ryan Nelsen as coach on Aug. 31.

“And, at the end of the season when Michael and I sat down, the discussion was we don’t have enough men on this team. We have guys who are good players, but when the going gets tough and Tim comes in, in a very soft way, and challenges the team to step up and tries to motivate them and there is no response, there weren’t enough men to take on that responsibility.

“We have to come every day with the mentality and with the commitment to train as if we were a team that has no chance in hell based on pure talent alone,” the coach added.

“And when you put those things together, that is when you have a real chance to win and win consistently and to have something that stands up over time and isn’t just a house of cards.”

​steve.buffery@sunmedia.ca

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