Eric Hassli is feeling the love.

The big French striker, relegated to a spectator role much of the Major League Soccer season in Vancouver, says he’s delighted to be playing for a coach happy to have him.

“He really, really wanted me and I really want to work really, really to help the team and give back the confidence that he has,” Hassli, a 31-year-old designated player acquired last week, said as he sat beside TFC head coach Paul Mariner at BMO Field Saturday.

Hassli, one of the Whitecaps most popular and productive players in their inaugural season of 2011, had been finding it increasingly difficult to get playing time with Martin Rennie’s side in 2012. Often reduced to coming in off the bench for rookie Darren Mattocks and the recently-traded Sebastien Le Toux, he became expendable when the Whitecaps earlier this month signed Scottish international striker Kenny Miller.

“I am a soccer player. I want to play. I need to play,” Hassli said of the trade. “I can’t stay on the bench.

“Toronto wants to be huge in this league and I think we have potential to be a great team, so I’m really happy to be part of it.”

In Toronto, Hassli, who has been nursing an ankle injury for the past couple of weeks and did not suit up against the Houston Dynamo Saturday afternoon, will be expected to fill the void of leading scorer Danny Koevermans, out for the season with a knee injury.

Mariner admitted Saturday he was devastated when Koevermans went down July 14.

“I, privately, thought that my world had caved in because how do you replace a player of that quality,” Mariner told reporters.

But Mariner said he’s “over the moon” with getting Hassli for a first-round draft pick in 2014 and an international roster spot in 2013. He called the 6-foot-4, 200-pound player who came to MLS from FC Zurich of the Swiss Super League an “ultimate professional.”

Hassli had 12 goals in 44 MLS matches for Vancouver, including two in the Whitecaps’ historic first game, a 4-2 win over TFC. He added three more in eight Canadian championship matches, one of them a highlight-reel strike against Toronto this year.

“Even though he’s hurt us a few times in the past when he was with Vancouver, my admiration for him ... was enormous,” Mariner said. “And, I think our fans hated him but they absolutely loved him.

“Now that he’s a Toronto player they’re going to absolutely adore him. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s almost a throwback to the old traditional centre forward where you almost don’t want to get around him he’s such a difficult player to play against.”

Mariner, who said TFC didn’t start pursuing Hassli until after Koevermans went down, said even with his arrival Koevermans remains a key part of the club in the future.

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Toronto FC could get help from Eric Hassli in push for fourth straight win

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