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Plenty of motivation for TFC's Giovinco, snubbed on two continents

At this point, Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney maybe should consider sending his Italian counterpart Gian Piero Ventura a thank-you note.

Not that Sebastian Giovinco needs any more fuel to his considerable fire, but he’s certainly getting it. Ventura, the Azzurri head coach, squirted lighter fluid all over it on Monday in Florence, when he said that in effect, MLS just isn’t a league he takes seriously enough to include Giovinco in his squad for this international break – and seemingly, any international breaks to come.

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So let’s call the roll on the Atomic Ant:

Good enough for North America – “a league that doesn’t count for much,” in the withering in-translation assessment of Ventura. Not good enough for Italy.

Good enough – to bamboozle MLS defences for a second straight year, including four goals during a 7-0 home and way dismantling of NYC FC and old pal Andrea Pirlo in their latest playoff round. Not good enough to merit a spot in the league’s final three for this year’s MVP, an award he won last year unanimously.

Whether you agree with Ventura or not, arguments about the sophistication of MLS defenders and tacticians are nothing new. Whether you agree with the voters — and that requires a far greater stretch; this is a group that nominated for coach of the year Patrick Vieira, last seen wandering Yankee Stadium looking for his head — is beside the point.

What does matter is that given the looming carrot of a league championship to go along with that 2015 MVP trophy, Giovinco is answering by doing what he’s done since day 1 of this move out of Italy and all the way to Toronto – exploding, and pulling a franchise up from irrelevance into what, exactly, will only become clearer over the next few weeks. Put against the spotty returns of MLS designated players, his consistency not just in terms of performance and mesmerism but in staying on message, with nary a pout to show for nearly two years in North America, has been outstanding, and of course the skepticism of the likes of Ventura and other Euro-centric observers is part of his motivation. After all, the first thing this guy did upon coming to Toronto was go to a tattoo parlour and get one of those “loser” emoji’s stitched into the inside of his right arm – a riposte, he told me last year, to all the doubters back home when he left Juventus in his age-28 prime for this grand experiment.

Meantime, in a few weeks, whether Toronto’s appetite for pro soccer has grown commensurately will become apparent. TFC and Giovinco have been overmatched as they struggled for a foothold to climb out of the hole dug by on one hand their own sad history, and on the other against a number of compelling storylines crowding the local sporting landscape – the Jays and the Raptors, primarily, with their respective bat-flip and LeBron-meeting moments.

Now the coast is clear and they’ve never had it this good, heading into late fall and a showdown with the Montreal Impact. There’s a Grey Cup to be played at TFC’s BMO Field home in the middle of it – there is, honestly – but the days of three-down football ruling over its distant futbol relative appear long over in Toronto at least, and this all-Canadian MLS east final checks a number of boxes the Grand National Drunk will (beer, mostly) and a number that it won’t – two local sides; a derby atmosphere, including insults from rival supporters in two official languages; and another talismanic MVP-level MVP snub in Montreal’s Ignacio Piatti, the Argentine who has emerged this year as a far more influential figure with the Impact than the more celebrated, more petulant DP Didier Drogba.

It’s a good stage for both, but in particular for Giovinco, with skeptics on opposite sides of the Atlantic pushing him on. One more two-legged jump, and another, and perhaps there would even be a patch of skin left somewhere on his inky Atomic Antness to commemorate them.