TORONTO — As Toronto FC prepares to shift its pre-season base to Spain at the end of the week, the search for a new forward continues.
And former star striker Sebastian Giovinco, who returned to the club in October as a special adviser and club ambassador, has been helping GM Jason Hernandez and the MLS team's scouting staff in the hunt for attacking talent.
"He's been quite active in some of the profiles that we've been working through, particularly at the striker position," Hernandez said in an interview.
With 83 goals and 64 assists in 142 appearances in four seasons for Toronto across all competitions, Giovinco knows his stuff.
Hernandez has been selective in player moves so far during the off-season, although he cautions that plenty of preparatory work has been done behind the scenes.
"I believe in the coming days we'll see some different news come out about the club," he said in an interview.
Hernandez says the club had targeted three to five new players this season although he says that number is a "bit of a moving target" given that Robin Fraser has just taken over as head coach.
"It's safe to say that should nothing happen, we're going to be at least in the three-player range and we're hoping for three starters of quality that can impact the group."
That number includes Canadian international winger Theo Corbeanu, a former TFC academy player who has joined the MLS club on a season-long loan from Spain's Granada CF with an option to make the move permanent.
Toronto opted not to exercise its 2025 contact option on Prince Owusu, who led the team with nine goals last season.
"It's unfortunate at the end of his tenure with us we couldn't find a deal that we thought would reflect financially where his role would be with us moving forward — which was in more of a supportive role," Hernandez said of the German striker, who made US$807,500 last season.
TFC sold Owusu's rights to CF Montreal for up to US$250,000 in allocation money, meaning it essentially got a nice chunk of something for nothing. Montreal then signed Owusu to a two-year contract with an option for 2027, using targeted allocation money (TAM).
With the going rate for right of first refusal usually at US$50,000, it was a good piece of business.
TFC also profited from the recent sale of Thiago Andrade to Japan's Cerezo Osaka, given the Brazilian winger only cost the team a first-round pick (ninth overall) in a draft-day deal with expansion San Diego FC.
"We feel very very positive about exchanging the ninth pick in the draft for close to $500,000 US," said Hernandez.
San Diego will get a portion of that transfer fee as part of the December trade. But the fact that Andrade, who spent last season on loan in China from New York City FC, did not play for TFC — or even get to Toronto — means that the US$250,000 in conditional general allocation money (depending on certain performance-based metrics) that was part of the original deal goes by the board.
Hernandez has spent time cleaning up past messes with the team's salary cap. "Certainly improved" is his current assessment of the team's salary situation.
Toronto has yet to declare whether it will go with three designated players, as it did last season, or shift to the U22 Initiative player model, which permits two DPs and up to four U22 Initiative players and comes with a sizable injection of general allocation money.
"We have an idea. We have not yet finalized or formalized that yet," said Hernandez.
While Italians Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi and Canada international Richie Laryea currently are the team's designated players, Laryea's contract can be restructured to remove the DP tag.
Insigne's salary of US$15.4 million was second only to Inter Miami's Lionel Messi (US$20.5 million) in the league last season. Bernardeschi made US$6.295 million while Laryea earned US$1.329 million.
Joining Owusu in exiting after last season were defenders Aimé Mabika, Shane O'Neill and Luke Singh and midfielder Brandon Servania. Goalkeeper Greg Ranjitsingh was also released, subsequently signing with NYCFC.
TFC’s two-legged pre-season starts in Marbella, Spain with the team scheduled to return in early February before flying south to continue camp in Palm Beach, Fla., on Feb. 10.
TFC will then travel directly to Washington, D.C. for the Feb. 22 regular-season opener at D.C.
Toronto missed the playoffs for the fourth straight season, finishing at 11-19-4 under head coach John Herdman, who stepped down in late November.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 15, 2024.
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press