"The young back four are learning really quick," said Toronto head coach Paul Mariner. "I thought that was the best performance of the back four today."

It hasn't taken Paul Mariner long to master the initiation of any Toronto FC head coach: watching his team give away points thank to stoppage-time allowances.

But it all came undone as poor defending gave Houston the opportunity to steal a point at home on a hot, humid night in its brand new BBVA Compass Stadium.

With Paul Mariner taking the reins from Aron Winter, beginning the next chapter of Toronto FC's history, the end result was still a familiar one for the Reds. Poor play at the start of the match and bad luck on the offensive end played a big part of a 2-0 road loss to Sporting Kansas City.

Winter and Tom Anselmi, the executive vice-president and chief operating officer for MLSE, had regular discussions about the direction of the club and a couple of days ago and it became clear to management that a change was needed.

A season and a half ago, the wise people at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, wither through a series of gross miscommunications or ill-devised planning, decided to hire two men to do, essentially, the same job.

Toronto FC announced two promotions on Monday. Bob de Klerk will move away from the coaches’ bench and will be the new technical manager for the club, while Jim Brennan moves from coaching the Academy ranks to the senior squad.

When making trades, what is often lost in the business of the sports are the human stories behind the scenes that media and fans often never hear about. When a player is traded, there can be hostility towards the old club because a pre-existing situation (i.e. Dwayne De Rosario’s contract situation) or simply because they were traded and, as a result, felt unwanted. However, there are those rare instances where a player is thankful and happy to have been traded and still keep in touch with his former manager as a result.

Before you sow the crops, you must clear the land. In their first MLS draft, TFC’s brain trust of Aron Winter and Paul Mariner arrived with chainsaws in their hands. The trades of the previous regimes had left the Reds with nothing better than a 26th-overall draft pick; they knew that by then, there would be no obvious gems — …

As new head coach and technical director of Toronto FC, Aron Winter said he wants to bring to Major League Soccer a style that is similar to the one used at Ajax.