Toronto FC has begun to feel more like the 2017 vintage of late, winning three consecutive games as its catastrophic injury list has shortened.
There has also been a familiar face around the club’s BMO Training Ground. Tsubasa Endoh, the Japanese midfielder who was TFC’s first-round pick in the 2016 SuperDraft, has returned to the fold and will resume training with a view to potentially signing for the Reds’ USL club, TFC II.
Endoh was selected with the ninth pick two-and-a-half years ago and made an outstanding start in MLS, appearing in 17 of Toronto’s first 22 league games that year. But his opportunities faded thereafter and the Reds’ switch to a 3-5-2 formation late in 2016 left him without a natural spot in the lineup. Endoh did not have his contract extended when it expired at the end of 2017 and after TFC filled its seven international slots, he went abroad in search of a new club.
The 24-year-old is still yet to play a competitive game in 2018, though, and is now back in Toronto.
“He is back to training,” Toronto coach Greg Vanney said Thursday. “He might be an addition to the club. It won’t be on the first team right now. I think he went on trial in Belgium and he was looking at a few other places. It doesn’t appear as though those things came through, so then he comes back and needs to keep playing soccer.
“He’s a player that we like. He’s back in the fold. He’s got to get fit, get some soccer minutes and I think our thought process is that possibly if he does that he could do that through TFC II.”
Endoh, normally a winger or attacking midfielder, was tried at wing-back after the aforementioned switch to 3-5-2 but that experiment was not hugely successful. In June of last year, he started there in a Canadian Championship match against the Ottawa Fury with TFC 1-0 down on aggregate. After 35 goalless minutes, Vanney made a substitution to push him into a more familiar right-wing role. Endoh scored in a 4-0 win.
Toronto has used a 4-4-2 formation on occasion this year that could play more to Endoh’s strengths, but the 3-5-2 has become Vanney’s go-to setup again of late.
After loaning midfielder Ager Aketxe to Cádiz and releasing Argentine youngster Mariano Mino, Toronto has two international slots open. According to MLSsoccer.com’s Sam Stejskal, TFC is open to trading one of them.