TFC Notebook: The character that is Federico Bernardeschi through the lens of his Toronto FC teammates

It’s another Friday, which means it’s time for another TFC Notebook.

A new notebook will be released every Friday throughout the course of the 2023 Toronto FC season, featuring news and updates from training during the week, exclusive interviews, tidbits and more. It's supported by BET99 Sportsbook so if you're interested in responsible gaming, please check out their special welcome offer.

Without further ado, let’s dive in. 
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Last Week's Notebook: Nottingham Forest loanee Richie Laryea discusses his future with Toronto FC
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Bernardeschi is ‘a good challenge’ says Bob Bradley

The first time that Federico Bernardeschi and Michael Bradley spoke was over the phone last summer. The Italian international was en route to the airport, ready to board a flight back to Italy after completing his visit with Toronto FC prior to signing. At the end of that phone call, the TFC captain knew that the club was getting someone special.
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“It was pretty clear that he was a guy who was really motivated to come here and really do well, to do well on an individual level, to win, to do everything he could to help us,” Bradley told Room 4-4-2 in a one-on-one interview. “I think from that moment he and I were able to establish a good relationship.”

It hasn’t taken very long for Bernardeschi to become a fan favourite. Last weekend was just the latest example when the former Juventus FC star spoke to reporters following Toronto’s 2-2 draw against Charlotte FC.

“I’m happy because I’m maybe a Canadian man, no? I survived the winter in Toronto,” said Bernardeschi with a wry grin on his face.

Bernardeschi simply gets it. He understands the perception of himself — a European champion with Italy who has come to Toronto after spending five years and winning seven trophies with one of the biggest clubs in the world in Juventus — and maybe more than anything, he gets us.

One of our biggest insecurities here in Toronto when it comes to dealing with international soccer stars is the fear of not being good enough. Maybe our new Italians won’t like the weather. Maybe there’ll be a culture shock. Maybe our club, while one of the biggest in Major League Soccer, simply won’t be enough for a global star like Bernardeschi.

But Bernardeschi has helped ease those concerns by going the extra mile to demonstrate that not only is he bought in, but he’s fully embracing our city, our culture, and our football club.

Since he arrived, we've seen him attempt to do his very first press conference in English despite clearly not being fully comfortable with the language. We’ve seen him post videos on social media of him taking English lessons, we’ve seen him attend Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Blue Jays, and Toronto Raptors games, and we’ve even seen him take a stab at learning Toronto slang.

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“He has a big personality. He’s not afraid of anything, he has thrown himself into the club and the city in every possible way,” said Michael Bradley.

Last Saturday’s post-match press conference was the first time that Bernardeschi did media without the help of an interpreter. It’s a seemingly small gesture, but it’s one that goes a long way in helping establish an authentic relationship and connection with the media and the fan base — something that he has worked hard to do from the beginning, even with his teammates.

The first time that he spoke to his new team, Bernardeschi stood up in front of everyone, and addressed the squad in English. He wanted to build that aforementioned connection with his teammates, who have clearly felt the love.

“He’s a character. I’ve only known him for a month or two, but man, I love the guy,” veteran defender Matt Hedges told Room 4-4-2 last month.

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Richie Laryea has formed a lethal relationship with Bernardeschi down Toronto’s right-hand side, and the defender echoed Hedges’ thoughts.

“What you all see online is the way he is. He's a very light-hearted, funny, outgoing guy,” said Laryea. “He’s normally one of the loudest guys in the group, so he’s good, he’s good to have around. He brings good energy.”

That’s the most popular response among Toronto FC players when asked about Bernardeschi’s personality: “what you all see is who he is.”

Bernardeschi has a really good relationship with his teammates, a lot of whom refer to him as a jokester. The team still gives him a hard time about his ‘cheesecake’ answer when he was asked by the team’s content crew what his favourite pie was.

“Funny guy,” said Brandon Servania, describing Bernardeschi. “I think he just has a lot of character, he’s very outgoing. He has a big presence. I think it’s always nice to see some smiles in the locker room, lighthearted, and he just likes everyone to be having a good time.”

The 29-year-old winger has an infectious energy about him. He could be reading a dictionary and you’d have trouble holding back a smile.

But like most competitors, there’s another side to him that we’re not always privy to, something Bob Bradley touched on a few weeks back.

“Fede’s an interesting guy, you know, he’s fun. What you see on social media is a great part of him. ... Also on the inside— like I challenge him now to also be a really good leader in [the] team, to be a good teammate and to be a more consistent player and to be a guy that even if now he’s not getting the ball … as much as he wants, that he’s doing more to help the team in other ways,” said the TFC Head Coach and Sporting Director.

Behind Bernardeschi’s fun-loving, outgoing personality, there’s a fiery competitor – a guy who isn’t afraid to speak his mind when he feels things aren’t going in a good direction. We got a small taste of that following the home opener, a 1-1 draw with the Columbus Crew, when he frustratingly called out the team for their poor style of play and lack of results.

We’ve also seen instances, from afar, when he does visibly display frustration on the pitch when things aren’t going his way, but to be fair, his body language is night-and-day compared to past Toronto FC stars and other big names that we’ve seen come to MLS.

“Yeah, obviously he’s emotional. There’s times in the game where he’s upset, something where it didn’t go exactly like how he wanted it to, but he’s definitely a team player and he’s working hard to help the group in the best way he can,” said Servania.

Like Servania and other TFC players that I spoke to for this story, Michael Bradley sees the Italian’s frustration as simply the mindset of an accomplished competitor.

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“When you have guys who have played at Juventus, or Napoli, or Roma, or Barcelona, or Basel, or Brøndby, or you have guys that have played in World Cups or in Champions League, the expectations every day are pretty high. When in certain moments we are not able to for whatever reason live up to the expectations that we all have … then yea in certain moments guys are angry.

“Is Federico different than anyone else in that regard? No. Is he a competitor? Yeah. Does he want to win? Yeah. Does he have high expectations? Yes. Are those all damn good things? Yes, yes, and yes,” said the TFC captain.

While there’s no doubt that his intentions are good, there have been instances where his passion has wavered, and Bob Bradley’s job is to ensure that Bernardeschi's enthusiasm and energy is filtered in ways that’ll solely benefit the team.

“He’s worked very hard in the off-season. He’s fitter, he’s strong, he runs hard and those can be really important qualities in our team. And look, he is a guy that brings life. You’ve just got to make sure that it’s all in the right way for the group. So yeah, it’s a good challenge,” said Bob Bradley.

Akinola wants to prove his doubters wrong

Ayo Akinola is playing this season with a chip on his shoulder.

The 23-year-old striker says that he knows there are people who have written him off and he’s motivated to prove them wrong.

“I know people have written me off, and I’m okay with it, I learned from that, but [this season] is definitely a time where I want to prove people wrong,” said Akinola at the BMO Training Ground earlier this week, fresh off his first start of the season. “I just want to show people who I actually am, who I really am, pre-ACL [injury]. 

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“I want them to … take last year out, and then [say] this is the new Ayo. Ayo hasn’t lost a step. Ayo hasn’t lost a beat. That’s what I want to prove.”

Akinola is coming off a season where he scored just twice in 26 MLS appearances, a year that the once highly touted striker acknowledges was “not good” and says that he doesn’t blame anyone for writing him off because of it. Granted, it was his first year back from a serious knee surgery that had him sidelined for the better part of 10 months, but the Brampton, Ont., native isn’t making any excuses for himself and says that his knee injury is a thing of the past.

However, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a big mental hurdle for the youngster to overcome.

“You just feel much slower than what you’re usually accustomed to. You’re very reactive, very slow to things — not sharp. You feel like you’re a step behind other players, and your opponents too. I could see that when I first started to train, just the way I was running, I was scared to jump and land. It has a big mental toll on you, trying to gain that type of confidence. That’s what I was going through last year,” Akinola explained.

Prior to tearing his ACL, Akinola was one of Major League Soccer’s brightest young stars after a coming out party at the MLS is Back Tournament in Orlando, Florida. That 2020 season he went on to score a team-leading nine goals in just 11 starts, also leading MLS in goals per 90.

At that time, Akinola looked like a confident and strong striker with deceiving pace and a nose for goal; he excelled in making runs in behind off a defender’s shoulder, often finding himself on the other end of an Alejandro Pozuelo through ball. It was that type of pedigree that was enough to convince Toronto FC to sign Akinola to a multi-year Under-22 Initiative contract worth just shy of $700,000 last season despite undergoing major knee surgery.

And it’s that type of pedigree that both Akinola and head coach Bob Bradley are hopeful the young forward will get back to.

“[Bob Bradley] shows me videos of me in the past, pre-ACL injury, of basically how dominant I was. He’s basically just telling me like this is [me]. He’s reminding me that this is who I really [am],” said Akinola. “Knowing that I could look at those types of clips … and know that … I could play like that once again. It just gives me daily reminders, steady reminders of who I really am.”

Asked what Akinola needs to do to get back to his pre-ACL form, Bradley pointed to a combination of things.

“It’s a mix of confidence, it’s a mix of being sharper, it’s a mix of when certain plays come, do you take advantage of the moment? Do you know what’s coming? How do you arrange yourself? If you go through all of our games this year, you’ll see that he at times has gotten himself into some decent positions, and now the ability to make those plays count a little bit more I think would be important. And I think as a young attacker who has a physical element that his ability to also ... help us in terms of winning balls,” said the TFC manager.

The club took a gamble on Akinola when they signed him to his new deal last offseason and so far, it hasn’t paid off, but the Canadian international still believes that he can return to his former self with Toronto FC and live up to the hype that once had him touted as the next big thing in Concacaf.

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After last Saturday’s match, Bradley said that there were parts of Akinola’s game – holding up balls, bringing other players into the game – that were going well, but he still lacked the “final moments." That’s been the case since his knee injury: the final product hasn’t been there consistently enough. Akinola has scored just two league goals in his last 30 appearances since returning to action last April.

Toronto FC’s strikers – Akinola, Adama Diomande, Deandre Kerr, Jordan Perruzza, and Hugo Mbongue – have combined to score just one goal this season. If you include the recently departed Jesús Jiménez and Achara, TFC’s strikers have scored just three times in 20 matches since Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi made their debuts last July.

The production out of Toronto’s strikers has not been good enough, and that obviously weighs on the mind of Akinola.

“It has to [weigh on me],” he said. “At some point, if we’re not getting production, they’re going to look at the 9s. Media, fans, they’re going to start looking at the 9s. So, of course, it’s going to weigh on all of us, but especially me because if I’m out there playing and I’m not producing, it’s just going to be like ‘we need another striker. When is Diomande coming back?’ I can’t [lie]. I’m very honest.”

Last week, Bradley said that it would be “really important” if the team could get Akinola going and contributing in all ways. And while the young striker does feel that his overall game is moving in the right direction, none of that really matters if he’s not putting the ball in the back of the net.

“As a 9, you get paid to score. They don’t really care about what you do in the whole mix of it. Most of your job is to score,” Akinola said. “Yeah, I could create passes, shots, chances, but at the end of the day, they’re going to ask how many goals does he have? I could do all the little stuff, but at the end of the day, if it doesn’t equate to me scoring, no one is going to really look at the extra stuff.”

Toronto FC desperately need a solution out of their No. 9 and with Diomande sidelined, both Akinola and Kerr have an opportunity to stake their claim as the team’s starter, and both are really likeable, classy, homegrown guys that you can’t help but root for.

However, as Akinola said, goals are going to have to start coming sooner rather than later or else the club will have to look elsewhere for another solution — if they haven’t begun that process already.

Why Toronto FC traded Jacob Shaffelburg

For the first time since his move away from Toronto FC, Jacob Shaffelburg will face his former club when the Reds travel to GEODIS Park to take on Nashville SC on Saturday.

Speaking to reporters prior to the match, the 23-year-old winger said that he’s very excited to face his former squad, after graduating through Toronto’s ranks as a homegrown player and spending over three years with the Reds.

“I’m super excited, especially to see a lot of the guys, the staff. It’s a cool moment, I’ve never experienced it before,” said Shaffelburg.

A popular figure during his time with TFC, the Port Williams, Nova Scotia native says that he’s really enjoyed life in Nashville since joining the 2020 MLS expansion side on loan last summer, crediting the club for making his transition ‘a really smooth’ one.

“People are super nice here. My wife and I always say they remind us of people back in Nova Scotia, how welcoming they are, so it’s been a great transition. And, on the field, it’s been great, too,” Shaffelburg said.

Shaffelburg has hit the ground running with his new side, scoring four times and adding one assist in 15 appearances — including two goals in five matches already this season.

Nashville SC head coach Gary Smith said Thursday that Shaffelburg was a ‘wonderful signing’ for their club. The Coyotes paid an initial loan fee of $225,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM), and then an additional $300,000 to make the transfer permanent this offseason.

“It’s not always that players mould or blend into a group as much as a coach might like, and that was obviously the case for Bob Bradley and Jacob, but he’s found a good home here. His athleticism, his pace, has given us a very different edge to maybe what we had prior,” said Smith. 

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The Nashville manager added: “From almost day one, the confidence maybe Jacob had in coming out of a group that he was finding limited minutes and suddenly being thrust into the spotlight again regularly gave him a huge lift, and he’s managed to carry that on into this year. He’s been very, very bright.”

Shaffelburg struggled last season under Bradley, the new head coach and sporting director of TFC, after having a breakout season in 2021 that earned him a spot on John Herdman's Canadian men's national team roster for World Cup Qualifiers. 

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Partially due to injury, Shaffelburg played just over 600 minutes in 15 appearances with Toronto in 2022, despite the club going through a rebuild. He was asked to play a brand new position at left-back, which according to one source, was thrown at him abruptly with little guidance or instruction.

Reflecting on the move, Bradley explained the decision to move on from Shaffelburg on Thursday.

“I think Jacob’s best position is playing out wide on the left; that’s how Nashville has used him. Obviously, that’s where Lorenzo [Insigne] plays, we have other guys that play there. We tried earlier in the season last year to also see if he could develop a little bit as a left-back, [and] there were some moments when I thought that had possibilities, but he never really got comfortable, had a little bit of injury stuff last year that made him go up-and-down. Yeah, he probably needed a change, and he fits well with what they do as a team,” said Bradley.

With Insigne on the verge of joining the club and with minutes already hard to come by, Shaffelburg was keen on a move elsewhere, according to another source, something that the pacey winger touched on earlier this season.

“I was pretty in the loop with the idea of getting loaned out. I wasn’t getting that many minutes in Toronto, and there wasn’t really a light at the end of the tunnel for me it felt like, so a loan for both parties felt like the right move,” Shaffelburg told OneSoccer.

It’s not very often that it works out this way, but in hindsight, Shaffelburg’s transfer to Nashville looks like a move that has benefited both parties. The young Canadian is enjoying life in Nashville, thriving in Smith’s vertical system, and is back on Herdman’s national team radar, while the allocation money that Toronto picked up was subsequently used to re-acquire star right-back Richie Laryea on loan from Nottingham Forest — and help the team make other additions this offseason.

Toronto FC is obviously hoping that this situation doesn’t play out, but for what it’s worth, if Shaffelburg does manage to score against his former club Saturday night, expect no reaction.

“I won’t celebrate. I’ve got a lot of respect for Toronto, so I won’t celebrate,” he said. 

Added Time: News and Notes

— Toronto FC (1-4-1) are heavy underdogs (+375) vs. Nashville SC (3-1-2) on Saturday. Toronto’s last away victory came at GEODIS Park, winning 4-3 thanks to a pair of goals from Jonathan Osorio. TFC are unbeaten (2-1-0) in their last three games against the 2020 MLS Expansion side.
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— Room 4-4-2 co-host Sara Poraria and I were at BMO Training Ground on Thursday to discuss Michael Bradley's role at Toronto FC ahead of the club's match against Nashville. Check the chat out here.
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— Federico Bernardeschi has now been involved in 10 of Toronto FC’s last 17 MLS goals (seven goals, three assists), dating back to August 27, 2022.
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— Lorenzo Insigne (groin) will miss his fifth-straight game Saturday, but the team is hopeful that the Italian superstar will be ready to return next weekend vs. Atlanta United.
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— Toronto FC have gotten to the bottom of Cristián Gutiérrez’s non-Covid illness. Bob Bradley said that the Canadian is feeling better, looking better, and is smiling. He still hasn’t trained with the club, but his return appears to be near.
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— Lastly, on the injury front, Adama Diomande (lower-body) is close to a return. Bob Bradley said that the team is hopeful he’ll be back for next Saturday’s match vs. Atlanta.
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— For the second time this season, Federico Bernardeschi was named to the MLS Team of the Matchday. It’s the fifth time a TFC player has been named to the TOTW: Sean Johnson (Week 2), Richie Laryea and Bernardeschi (Week 3), Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty (Week 4).
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— Toronto FC II are winless (0-0-2) to start their MLS NEXT Pro season. The Young Reds are off this week, but will be back in action next week for their home opener at York Lions Stadium (April 14 vs. NYCFC II). If you’re interested in going, more information on how to get tickets should be released next week.
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— Speaking of TFC II, Adam Pearlman spent time training with the first team this week. The 18-year-old centre-back, along with midfielder Markus Cimermancic (who was signed to a short-term loan earlier this season), are the Toronto FC II players to train most frequently with the senior side.
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— Toronto FC have had a decent showing at the Generation Adidas Cup this past week. The U-15 side did not make it out of their group, but bounced back with a strong showing in the Showcase division, highlighted by a 4-2 victory over Chelsea FC. The U-17s, meanwhile, fared slightly better, dropping just one game in the tournament, but still failed to make it out of their group. Like the U-15s, they’re a perfect 2-0-0 in the Showcase so far. A name that stood out to me in the *one match* that was available to be streamed was 16-year-old centre-back Chimere Omeze.

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