Soccer, in which he captured the league's Most Valuable
Player award and led Toronto FC to its first playoff
appearance, Sebastian Giovinco says 2016 will be even
better.
Speaking to reporters earlier this week as part of an MLS
preseason media junket, the 28-year-old Italian international
reflected upon his debut season in North America and said
that there is still plenty of room to grow for both himself and
his club.
Despite Giovinco's commanding debut in MLS — the
diminutive attacker led the league in goals and assists —
TFC fell at the first hurdle in its postseason introduction. It's
a failure that Giovinco wants to set right in 2016 — but not
at the expense of the impressive numbers he put up as a
newcomer to the league.
"I have a winning mentality, so I would not trade anything,"
the former Juventus man said through a translator when
asked if he would give up his personal accolades for team
glory. "My goal is to win more. So my goal for next season
will be to again win the MVP, the assist [and goal titles], and
also the league."
Also among his stated goals for the upcoming season is to
be selected by Antonio Conte for Italy's Euro 2016 squad,
and Giovinco said that he can only do so by continuing the
high standard he set with TFC last year.
"It's one of my goals," he said. "Of course, in order to go
there I have to play for Toronto FC first and perform in the
best way possible.
One thing that Giovinco was able to do faster than many
European stars was adjust to the travel, time zone issues
and other eccentricities that make MLS a surprisingly tough
challenge for players coming from overseas.
It's this relatively short adjustment period that Giovinco
credits for his stellar 2015 campaign.
"For myself, the first month and a half was a little bit hard,"
the TFC star acknowledged. "But other than that everything
else was great. I'm happy that I was able to adjust myself
so quick, so fast. And after that my only goal was to play
and to perform in the best way possible."
One area Giovinco felt it easy to adapt to MLS was
tactically, as he said that the North American circuit was not
as advanced as its top-level European counterparts in that
regard.
But he also poined out that it's not necessarily a bad thing.
"The beauty of this league is that there's less tactics, so
from a supporter point of view it's nice to go and see the
games because there are a lot of goals," he said, adding
that he might be a bit biased in his assessment due to his
position on the field.
"From a striker's standpoint it's better because it's more
spectacular and there's more chances to score," he said.
"For a defender, maybe it's not the best."
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