Toronto FC director of player development Paul Mariner was a guest on the ExtraTime Radio podcast Thursday before TFC headed to the airport for its preseason trip to Turkey.  Host Nick Firchau and the ET team, MLSsoccer.com editor in chief Greg Lalas and analyst Simon Borg, spoke with Mariner in the first half of the hour-long program. 




Lalas picked Toronto to make the playoffs in 2011, mentioning the "seriousness" and "huge ambition" that has come over the club since the recent management signings. 




The trio also spent some time discussing Reds’ captain Dwayne De Rosario at the outset. Mariner appeared on the program via telephone shortly thereafter and said, “(De Rosario) has had tremendous conversations with Aron (Winter) and Bob (de Klerk) … De Ro is a very, very important part of the club, he is the captain and there’s a lot of respect between De Ro and Aron.”




Mariner touched on the prospect of adding a designated player, mentioned as many as 32 players could be with TFC in Turkey and the massive potential in Toronto and Ontario for the Academy.




Have a listen: ExtraTime Radio




Wednesday’s preseason press conference - streamed live on TorontoFC.ca - yielded a total of 16 videos on Toronto FC TV. As the run-away MLS leader in video production, we obviously felt it wasn’t enough. Our social media man Jonathan Sinden recorded behind the scenes footage that takes the viewer from the press table to the world of fashion, without leaving the confines of BMO Field:

During the press conference and live online blog, fans were kept abreast of the event via TFC's social network sites, out of which came this photo albumcreated by Jonathan on theReds' Facebook page.

TFC is off to Turkey Thursday for preseason. Our video man on the ground, Claudio, will be sending us heaps of footage from Antalya. We also hope to keep in touch regularly with Stefan Frei through his preseason feature (look for it first in the Toronto Sun), Dan Gargan and hopefully a few others.

Discuss this with Asif on Twitter.