Giovinco: A legacy on HIS terms

By IAIN KING, Toronto, November 28, 2017

HOMETOWN HERO...ignored by Italy but Sebastian Giovinco is the darling of the Reds fans. He is now sporting royalty and a billboard player in his adopted city of Toronto

QUESTION: Is it possible to throw away your career leading your team to glory and earning over £100,000-A-WEEK?

That's the charge hurled at Toronto FC's talismanic Italian superstar Sebastian Giovinco every time he is quizzed by journalists from his homeland.

Yet at the age of 30, the 5ft 4ins Atomic Ant walks tall in his adopted city.

He is a billboard player, up there with ice hockey phenomenon Auston Matthews of the Maple Leafs, Raptors basketball icon DeMar DeRozan or Blue Jays baseball hero Josh Donaldson.

His feats on the field helped to win the Eastern Conference for the Reds last season only for Greg Vanney's side to blow their big chance of MLS Cup Final history in a penalty shoot-out at home to Seattle Sounders at BMO Field.

Tomorrow night I will be coaching the budding stars of North Toronto Nitros in our indoor dome at Downsview Parc - a goal-kick away from TFC's Kia training complex - as Giovinco bids to guide his side to a rematch in 2017.

With Seba and fellow designated player Jozy Altidore banned, Vanney's shrewd coaching saw the Canadian giants draw 0-0 at Columbus Crew in the first leg of this campaign's Eastern showdown.

With Seattle already 2-0 up on Houston Dynamo and at home in the second leg in the West it's odds-on for a repeat in the big one.

Giovinco's brilliance for Toronto once more sees him in the running for the Landon Donovan award as the Most Valuable Player in the MLS.

With an eye-watering salary of $7.1million (US) per season, only Orlando City's Kaka earned more in the past year here.

So how good is Giovinco? Why did he come here? Has he wrecked his legacy and ruined his career?

On Friday I was lucky enough to get an in-depth look inside the doors of the place where Seba hones his skills every day. TFC's Kia Training Academy.

As part of Ontario Soccer's excellent Technical Director course we finished a week of learning with a lecture on mindset from the club's fascinating Head of High Performance Michael Rabasca in the inner sanctum of the First Team Lounge.

It was intriguing to hear of the role played behind the scenes by the sports scientists and also by soccer students like Rabasca, an expert in cognitive development, as TFC seek any edge over their rivals.

Meditation, visualisation, the building of mental strength, all tools used even with their young Academy players.

Walking around inside Kia gives lie to the notion that Giovinco turned his back on Europe for a Mickey Mouse League.

Toronto FC lavish $22.7million a season making this side the best-paid in the MLS yet it is a cheap shot to say that's why Vanney - deservedly named Coach of the Year this week - has been successful.

The English Premiership this season is littered with clubs like Everton and West Ham United who have splashed the cash and floundered.

Vanney has instead cleverly moulded a side around Seba, Altidore and midfield general and skipper Michael Bradley.

He has shown calm wisdom and man-management to inspire a locker-room that also includes fledgling stars like Tsubasa Endoh on just $51,500 a season.

There are so many clever touches inside Kia, red walls lead you to the luxurious first team areas, white to the less glamorous Academy zones, no-one without a pro contract can ever set foot in the hallowed spaces.

The pitches from the grass, to the full-size artificial turf in the heated dome are immaculate.

It is a place for serious players, not washed-up has-beens looking for a retirement package.

I fully understood the scepticism of my friends and former journalistic colleagues when I was home in Scotland recently and spoke of my joy at watching Giovinco score twice and destroy Patrick Vieira's New York City FC in a trademark 4-0 win earlier this season.

He was on a different planet that day. So how good is he? I would say Seba could star in the English Premier League but not in the Top Six, he'd walk into the Celtic team and Rangers couldn't dream of him right now.

Why did he come here? Giovinco does few in-depth interviews, when he does he reveals little and even two years into his Toronto stay still often reverts to an interpreter.

Yet in those he has conducted it's clear the constant comparisons to the legendary Alessandro del Piero at Juve ground him down.

Here in this city he is worshipped for what he is in his own right, a mercurial football craftsman.

Has he wrecked his career and ruined his legacy? Eight months ago before I started my own adventure in Canada I would have said Yes. Undoubtedly.

Now I have to say No. He has instead created a new story, 40 years on from the days of Pele and the New York Cosmos Giovinco is a trailblazing star who came here in his PRIME.

If you say he has no legacy you under-estimate the massive effect he has on hundreds of thousands of football-daft kids in this sports-mad city of almost 3million people.

In the wake of the Azzurri's failure to qualify for the World Cup Finals for the first time in 60 YEARS TFC's exiled maverick was hurting. Badly.

He branded the play-off exit of veteran coach Gian Piero Ventura's side at the hands of Sweden "a disaster".

Giovinco, capped 23 times for his country, has been steadfastly ignored since he made the bombshell 2015 decision to swap the Serie A for the MLS.

As I watched a dreadful Italy side lacking any sort of imagination crash out against the Swedes I couldn't help but feel that small-mindedness and old-school attitudes towards the game here denied them the very player who could have made a difference.

Propelling TFC into their second MLS Cup Final in succession tomorrow night may seem like scant consolation to some.

For Sebastian Giovinco and his personal journey, though, it would be another landmark on the route to writing a new legacy. On his terms.

FEEL THE FOUR-CE...celebrating with my daughter Caitlin at BMO earlier this season as Giovinco scored twice and dismantled Andrea Pirlo's New York City in a 4-0 triumph