TORONTO -- Sebastian Giovinco is talking on the training ground and that's bad news for the Montreal Impact.
Normally a quiet type, Toronto FC's star striker is after every edge possible in the post-season, looking for the best places to position himself or collect the ball. So he's sharing more with teammates.
"The bigger the occasion ... the more you start to see him in terms of communication with other guys and making sure that his connection with other guys is a little bit clearer," Toronto coach Greg Vanney said after practice Tuesday. "Making sure that if he sees something on the field, he'll give a little word, whether it be the centre backs or somebody else, (to share) what he sees in a moment.
"You start to see him engage a little more in everybody else."
Toronto returns to action next Tuesday in Montreal in Game 1 of the MLS Eastern Conference final. Game 2 goes Nov. 30 at BMO Field. The winner of the aggregate series advances to the MLS Cup final against either Colorado or Seattle.
Giovinco missed five games late in the season with strains in his quadriceps and adductor. He was hurt in an Aug. 27 game in Montreal and returned Oct. 16 against the Impact.
He was held off the scoresheet that day but since then he has had a goal and an assist in the season-ending 3-2 win over Chicago, a goal and an assist in the 3-1 wild-card playoff win over Philadelphia and three goals and an assist in the 7-0 aggregate win over New York City FC.
"He's getting sharper with each game," Vanney said of Giovinco's injury return. "He's getting his legs under him more and more each game ... He's just finding his sweet spot and knows that the stakes are high right now."
Giovinco has scored 43 goals and added 33 assists in 65 regular-season and playoff games over the last two years for Toronto. That means he has been directly involved in 59 per cent of TFC's 129 goals over that period.
Left foot, right foot. Inside or outside the penalty box. From open play or set pieces. Giovinco is a threat.
The 29-year-old Italian is paid accordingly. His US$7.12 million salary this season exceeds Montreal's entire payroll of $6.96 million, according to the MLS Players Union.
At Juventus, Giovinco was not the straw that stirs the drink. But the reigning MLS MVP is the main man in Toronto, something which Vanney reminds him.
"When he says something, it means a lot to the team. Those little conversations that he has with guys mean more than sometimes he even knows ... He's humble enough that he doesn't necessarily always see it that way so I try to sometimes entice it out of him because there's real value in that."
Giovinco made no secret of the fact that Toronto's 3-0 loss to Montreal in the 2015 post-season rankled. It still stings, he says.
"We're going there with that precise mentality, to change that memory," he said through an interpreter.
And the five-foot-four 135-pounder continues to carry a chip on his shoulder for other reasons. He has been deemed surplus to requirements by the Italian national team, with coach Gian Piero Ventura denigrating Major League Soccer, and passed over in MVP voting this season.
Giovinco diplomatically said he was just thinking of the MLS playoffs. But he did seem to suggest he believed that he deserved a better fate than being off the list of three MVP finalists.
