Ali Curtis won’t be asked to make major changes to Toronto FC ahead of the 2019 season; his challenge will come as TFC may need to make in-season tweaks, and then help set up the team for 2020.

It’s not unfair to say that the new coach will be needing to do what amounts to a full-scale rebuild. And, that might only be attractive to a marquee candidate if he knows he’s going to get the keys to the kingdom.

For the better part of a decade, supporting Toronto FC was an exercise in futility. But, after getting to within one Stefan Frei fingertip from winning MLS Cup, expectations are high in Canada’s largest city. Where do the Reds go from here?

We notice more interest from our readers when we try to tackle a big topic over the course of several stories — and issue 10 of Plastic Pitch fits that bill. The MLS standings are always clogged, and 12 of 20 teams (60 per cent) make the playoffs. The No. 1 seed rarely goes on to win MLS Cup. Does …

Because Designated Players take up such a large chunk of a team’s salary-capped budget, conventional thinking is that an MLS club can either spread the wealth and have depth, or invest in star players but accept the consequences of having a thin roster. But, Toronto FC General Manager Tim Bezbatchenko is trying to prove that a team can have the best of both worlds

Toronto FC takes in a lot of its revenue in Canadian dollars, but pays out much of its travel and payroll expenses in U.S. dollars. A look behind the scenes shows that the financial game theory in the boardroom is almost as fascinating as the soccer strategies on the field

He’s won MLS Cups. He’s been an MLS All-Star. He’s an MLS team captain. And, when healthy, he’s an automatic Canadian national-team starter. So there’s nothing wrong with the fact that his first interaction with the media as a Toronto FC midfielder felt like a bit of a victory lap. He’s earned it.

Thanks to a slew of new signings and culling of Canadian players from the first-team lineup, Jonathan Osorio is now the only player from this country who can realistically hope for a regular starting job on Toronto FC...

Critics will point to Toronto FC’s 2014 campaign as the most high-profile failure in the franchise’s history — and that’s saying something. Apologists will point to the strides the team made despite missing the playoffs — again. So, is the glass half-empty or half-full for MLS’s poster boys for futility?

The Defoe/Gilberto/Michael Bradley Designated-Player push was Toronto FC’s final chance to convince the season-ticket base that things had changed. So, no matter what TFC does this off-season, the theme song for fans will be the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”