For the Impact, it’s a bonus pick; the club had made Gardner available for Friday’s Re-Entry Draft. It didn't want Gardner back.

So, Bernardez won the coach/GM vote handily, and he won the player vote. Yet, he’s not the Defender of the Year.

Bernier: “We’re a little disappointed because we had four games to play and we knew we had to win them all to have a chance at the playoffs. We didn’t have the same energy in the first half as we did in the second and you can’t play that way against a team that knows exactly what it has to do and then goes out and does it. We came up with too little too late and now we have three games left in the season.”

So, on Sept. 1, with two months of regular-season soccer left to play, TFC is a single point from being mathematically eliminated from the playoff chase. That is the result of Saturday's 2-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City.

"It was a bit of a nothing match, to be perfectly frank," said TFC head coach Paul Mariner.  "It was a bit of a stalemate and then suddenly they got the goal."

Calen Carr, who scored both goals as the Dynamo beat Sporting Kansas City 2-1 last Wednesday, then helped set up Macoumba Kandji’s opening goal in a 3-0 win over Montreal Saturday, got the nod.

“I was fined last week for claiming that the referee was one-sided. I’m not sure how scathing that was but obviously I’m not going to be able to make comments but I think it’s pretty obvious what happened out there,” said Impact head coach Jesse Marsch, obviously less than thrilled with the efforts of referee Sorin Stoica.

Koevermans won the balloting from the North American Soccer Reporters after scoring two goals over the course of a Toronto FC win and draw.

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.

As we stated on the ballot, ““De Rosario was dominant, outside of two goals. If De Ro only played his former teams he’d break Roy Lassiter’s scoring record three times over.”