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TORONTO -- Toronto FC now has brainiac GM Tim Bezbatchenko to go along with up-and-coming manager Ryan Nelsen. Nike Air Max Plus TN Ultra Bleu/Argent/Noir . The underachieving MLS team has a $20-million training centre that is the envy of the league, a fan base that has stayed remarkably loyal considering the dreck put in front of it, and an owner willing to spend more than US$25 million on two marquee designated players when the transfer window re-opens in January. There is salary cap space and allocation money to spend, not to mention some talent available to move. So is the dark age over for the 4-14-11 club, whose career league record is a woeful 49-102-66 going into Saturdays home game against Sporting Kansas City? "I do not think the dark days are over yet but I think there is a light at the end of the tunnel and we control our own destiny," said Tim Leiweke, president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. "And now we have to do the heavy lifting to get there by January so we could look everyone in the eye and tell them this is a different era here in this organization. Its not about flash, its not about spin. Its about hard work, tough decisions, spending some money and making the right decisions. I think well know that in January." No stranger to navigating multibillion-dollar sports empires, Leiweke is used to being the smartest person in the room. The 31-year-old Bezbatchenko may give him a run for his money, although the new GM is undoubtedly too smart to make it too obvious. A lawyer with degrees from the University of Cincinnati and the University of Richmond, Bezbatchenko comes from the leagues inner circle. As senior director of player relations and competition at Major League Soccer, he was a young league insider with intimate knowledge of MLSs complicated legal landscape. His brief at the league -- a single entity structure in which players are signed to the league rather than the team -- was to oversee and manage six clubs budgets and rosters, among other things. And his group included Toronto FC. Bezbatchenko (pronounced bez-buh-CHENK-oh) clearly knows where the bodies are buried in MLS. Although Leiweke said exactly that about former president and GM Kevin Payne before firing him. Bezbatchenko, a native of Westerville, Ohio, played midfield for the second-tier Pittsburgh Riverhounds in 2004-05, joining MLS in 2010 after two years with the law firm Shearman & Sterling. Bezbatchenko was working in mergers and acquisitions at the law firm. Or as he explained, he was getting deal experience in buying and selling companies. "This is the same, but youre doing it with players," he said of the move into soccer. Its not exactly a warm, fuzzy management approach. But top sports executives tend to be more ruthless than Ruth Buzzi. Bezbatchenkos job will be to help Nelsen get what he needs to continue the reconstruction of a moribund franchise. Leiweke has given an unqualified vote of confidence to Nelsen, saying the new GM would have to work with him in 2014. But it is clear that come January, if Nelsen gets the players he wants, the clock will be ticking on the manager. Should Nelsen ever depart the team suddenly, he no doubt has a book in him. He has quietly cleaned one mess after another at TFC while staying mostly mum. Leiweke made a point of noting that this is not rocket science. Hard work and good judgment are whats needed. "To be honest with you, this is not that difficult. Theres 11 slots and you need a couple of players per slot. And this is about filling in the boxes ... And one thing that Ryan pointed out, and I think hes right, is its not like were 22 boxes away. Were four or five boxes away. A couple of those are DPs." Those designated players are key, with Toronto eyeing international stars who can score goals while bringing some much-needed sizzle to the franchise. The team has pushed back the deadline for season ticket-holders to put their money down to January so they can see what progress has been made. Asked how long it takes to turn around an MLS team, Bezbatchenko smartly stepped around the crux of the matter. When pressed, he said it would be difficult to do it in one year "but our goal would be to have a nice upward trend over the next few years." Spoken like a true suit. Much of the talk Friday was about business plans, the right course and analysis. Although Bezbatchenko worked himself into a verbal pickle when he talked about Toronto "not having a successful playoff run in, ah, well ever." The club has never made the post-season in its seven seasons in the league. Some observers commented that Nelsen looked uncomfortable at the podium Friday, alongside Leiweke and Bezbatchenko. If so, it was likely because the former New Zealand international is more at home on the training field than in a suit -- although he cleans up nicely. Nelsen, 35, is smart enough to know he needs someone who knows the league and can do the spadework to unearth the talent he wants. Bezbatchenko fits that bill. "This is kind of a Theo Epstein hire," Leiweke said, referring to the baseball executive. Epstein, currently president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs, was 28 in 2002 when the Boston Red Sox made him the youngest GM in Major League Baseball history. Bezbatchenko, who is married with a one-year-old son, acknowledged his goal has been to become a GM. "Absolutely. Its the reason I went to law school," he said. There is no shortage of grey matter in the Bezbatchenko household. His wife is in higher education with a PhD to her credit. Leiweke said while commissioner Don Garber was loathe to let Bezbatchenko go, he saw the bigger picture. The league needs to fix Toronto as a franchise once and for all. "He was in Toronto a couple of weeks ago and he went to the game and he saw whats going on here," Leiweke said of a Sept. 11 tie with the Chicago Fire that drew a season-low crowd of 15,217. "I think he understands our pain ... And he knew that we need a big, bold statement. And amazingly he sees this the same way we do. It wont be the biggest name in the business but it will be the best move we could have possibly made." Bezbatchenko has also been a key figure in an MLS partnership with the French Football Federation that sees MLS youth academy coaches learn from the French model. Leiweke is a big believer in the role MLS academies can play, knowing if done right they can be a pipeline for cheap talent. Toronto canned Payne on Sept. 5 with Leiweke saying the two were no longer on the same page. Earl Cochrane, Paynes right-hand man and Torontos director of team and player operations, was also fired. Chief scout Pat Onstad subsequently left. Just minutes before Fridays announcement at BMO Field, pictures of Cochrane and Onstad remained on the wall outside the news conference room. But they were gone by the time it started. The team also wasted little time trading Argentine striker Maximiliano Urruti, Paynes prize acquisition, to Portland after just 37 minutes action in a Toronto uniform. For those wondering, Bezbatchenko grew up a Manchester United fan. He has since helped sign a Rooney, although unfortunately it was John -- Waynes little brother. Nike Air Max Plus Tn Ultra Pas Cher . Rookie Christian Vazquez got his first three major league hits and drove in three runs, while David Ortiz had three RBIs to break open the game in the sixth inning and lead Boston over the Houston Astros 8-3. Nike Tn Femme Noir . Kamloops, B.C., the host city of this years Tim Hortons Brier, is where he won his first Canadian mens curling crown in 1996. http://www.airmaxtnplus.fr/femme-air-max-plus-tn-ultra-nike-tn-rose-blanc.html . The best round belonged to Pat Perez. Tiger Woods didnt come close to claiming either Thursday in the Farmers Insurance Open, where the seven-time champion failed to break par in the opening round for first time in his career.Twenty-four-year-old Jacques Villeneuve drives out of the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the world at his feet. It is the Monday after the day before, a day that forever changed the life of the young Canadian. That day Villeneuve, fittingly driving the number 27 that become so synonymous with his father Gilles at Ferrari, comes from two laps down to win the 1995 Indianapolis 500. He had spent the day smiling and posing for hundreds of photographs that are beamed all across the world. By the end of the year he has a multi-year contract in his pocket at the best team in Formula One, Williams-Renault. Within two years Villeneuve is World Champion and is a star everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis 500 continues on without him. As Villeneuve departed for Europe, IndyCar split in two and has never fully recovered from the bitter divorce. The Indy 500s list of drivers in the late 90s lacked real star power and it lost a grip on being the biggest race in the world. Slowly the giant teams like Penske, Ganassi and Andretti returned and with them came world class, elite drivers. For some ten years now, the Indy 500 is back to what it once was, testing some of the greatest single-seater drivers the world has to offer. It is the second Sunday in May and Jacques Villeneuve, now 43, drives back inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dressed in a yellow race suit with Dollar General written all over it he looks nothing like what many would expect a former F1 World Champion to look. He doesnt have the amount of hair he once had but he is back at Indy as a driver, the first time in 19 years. He stops to sign autographs and pose for photographs as he makes that famous walk, paved by greatness, that the likes of A.J. Foyt, Jim Clark, Rick Mears and other stars have taken, alongside Gasoline Alley to the pit lane. The diehard fans stare and flock towards him but he is far from the main attraction at the Speedway. Villeneuve, not a regular on the IndyCar circuit, does remarkably well with attention but here he is just another driver, one that doesnt travel in packs with fellow drivers. He is a man from past glories back to recreate new memories of his own. "I hardly know anyone to be honest. I know (Takuma) Sato, but I never raced against him and I have never raced against anyone who is a regular in this series. That is weird because I dont know what to expect, I dont know how they race. Which one is clean? Dirty? Crazy? So its definitely a bit strange, yes." The answer is typical Jacques. He talks of not knowing anyone but immediately he means as drivers, not as men. Our conversation immediately turns to scenarios that can take place on the track. Villeneuve doesnt talk in clichés and for someone who has done as much media as he has in his life, he remains a refreshingly deep-thinker who can take you on the same journey as his mind. We talk about this upcoming Sunday and the Indy 500, and the point when he will be travelling in excess of 230 miles per hour with cars all around him. His eyes squint as he dictates word-for-word his precise thoughts as he gets set to compete in what he describes as the biggest race in the world. "The complexity of this race now is running in traffic. The cars have two hundred horsepower less than 19 years ago and much more grip and to be able to stay super close to the cars, while everyone is running flat out, the key is to stay close to someone else, (ready for) when he has to lift, back out a little bit because of the traffic in front of him, then you steal his momentum. "Thats really tough, ass you get in the turbulent air behind someone, your whole car is shaking and thats when the car starts sliding and you can lose the front end or the rear end a little bit and, at that point, do you have the guts to keep your foot down or not and is your car working in that situation?" This is a world he has little control in, a frightening thought for even the greatest of race drivers. Nike Air Max TN Plus Ultra Rouge/Noir. Villeneuve, who will start, fittingly, in the 27th spot for Sundays race, continues: "I will be surrounded by guys who respect the danger and others who think its a video game and, at those speeds, its risky and thats what I still dont know, who to trust and who not to trust out there. With more grip and less horsepower, the cars are very forgiving. I have got sideways a few times already this month and if I did that 19 years ago I would have been in the wall. "I think they give a false sense of security for some of the drivers and thats why you see kids coming in and, within three laps, they are flat out because I dont think they respect how dangerous it is. Once you get caught out, then you start respecting it and at Indianapolis there are two kinds of drivers, the ones who have hit the wall and the ones who havent hit the wall." It is clear Villeneuve is almost as concerned about those who havent hit the wall than hitting the wall himself. "This is not a track where you want to make a mistake. The speeds we go is exciting, it is unparalleled. It is a long race and my approach (in the past) was to mind your own business and it will come to you. You have to know when to take a risk and when not to. Normally in the first half, the idiots will crash themselves out so if you can stay clean to 100 laps then that can be useful!" There arent too many drivers in IndyCar who will refer to some of the colleagues as idiots but this is what comes with the honest, direct Villeneuve who survived the world of Formula One without turning into a robot, something very few have done in recent years. He admits he still watches Formula One but not the same way he once did: "I dont like or understand the reason behind the new rules but we have had some amazing races this year. Why? Only because the teammates have been allowed to fight. When you had Prost and Senna (at McLaren in the late 80s) they would lap the field but everyone was happy so we have a bit of that now with Lewis (Hamilton) and Nico (Rosberg). "The rules themselves, though, are not F1. The sport should be out of this world, not reality. You should look at it and say thats crazy how do these guys manage to drive these kinds of cars at those speeds. In the original turbo engine era they would do qualifying and then throw the engine in the garbage. Thats F1. It should be so extreme that when you are at home, and you are not a racer, you know thats another world. Now you are at home and think I could do that. There is nothing special about it anymore." The man who won 11 Grand Prix races has never been one to focus too much on the past but it is clear he knows those eras were far superior to modern day F1. He smiles when asked about the 1997 season but moves off from it as quickly as it comes up. "It was fun but I dont dwell on the past, I never have and thats why I want my kids to see me drive. I dont want to be for my kids, the guy that used to race that they can see in books." Those books tell a remarkable tale of one of the finest Canadians to ever compete in any sport. On Sunday at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing another chapter is to be written. ' ' '