A few years ago, the technical director of Ajax’s famed youth academy, De Toekomst (The Future), rolled through town assessing the strength of select local grade-school players.

He identified the key fault in Canada’s developmental system.

“Parents here want to win,” Patrick Ladru said, shaking his head sadly. “Winning is not important.”

In the world of football’s artists, the Dutch are its Romantics.

When the Netherlands advanced to last summer’s World Cup final, the country’s greatest footballing hero, Johan Cruyff, announced he was rooting for Spain. Why? Because the new hacking Dutch style was insufficiently beautiful. In the aftermath of a grinding and unwatchable contest, most of Holland tended to agree with him.

Like Cruyff, Toronto FC’s new on- and off-field boss Aron Winter is a product of that peculiar lowland aesthetic that is so at odds with North America’s win-no-matter-what philosophy.

Three weeks after his hire, the 43-year-old paid his first visit to the BMO Field offices on Tuesday morning. He already cuts a more thoughtful figure than TFC’s previous administration.

“The most important thing for me is that this club wants to change how they play soccer from the other MLS teams. That’s the real challenge,” Winter said.

Before taking the job, Winter watched a season’s worth of Toronto games back in Amsterdam. What’d he think?

“The way they were playing, it’s really that old-style English soccer that’s really on high speed — kick and rush soccer,” said Winter, and here his lip curled slightly. “That I don’t like.”

While insisting that there is sufficient quality in the side already — or insufficient evidence of a lack thereof — Winter is giving off all the indicators of a shakeup to come.

The team leaves Thursday for a training camp and a series of exhibition games in Turkey. Winter plans to have as many as eight trialists working out with the club. He’s already drafted eight more.

For now, it seems only three men have separated themselves as essential to his cause. Winter singled out midfielder Julian de Guzman, ’keeper Stefan Frei and errant captain Dwayne De Rosario as his “key players.”

After a confusing off-season and a flirtation with Celtic, Scarborough’s De Rosario was back on site taking a routine medical with his teammates Tuesday.

“I told him that I need him,” Winter said. “I’ve got a good relationship with him.”

Behind the scenes, Toronto FC’s management insists that De Rosario has accepted that his contract will not be renegotiated from its current value, about $500,000 annually. Let’s hope so, since no current player is better suited to Winter’s three-striker system.

Winter also says “we’re going to try” to bring in a second designated player before the beginning of the season in mid-March.

Regardless of the personnel, Winter doesn’t view his preoccupation with fluid tactics as an impediment to winning. Nor is he gun-shy about making pronouncements. Asked what will constitute a success here in Toronto, he says playoffs this year and a championship within the three-year run of his contract.

There is no bluster about the man, but there is an emboldening sense of calculated cockiness. Winter fully expects to dominate the league and school a few of his contemporaries while doing so.

He wouldn’t be the first new European arrival to think so. But Winter says he’s done his research through the Dutch grapevine — he dropped former L.A. Galaxy coach Ruud Gullit’s name — and is prepared for the culture shock that has undone others.

Nothing’s happened yet, but Toronto FC suddenly — and for the very first time — has flash. It emanates from the man himself. On Tuesday, he came togged out in a cashmere sweater, selvage jeans and black patent-leather trainers.

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When I admired his kicks, Winter noted proudly that they were limited edition — a line fronted by his former teammate, Pierre Van Hooijdonk.

“What size are you?” Winter asked. “I’m going to get you a pair. No, no. I am.”

Winter can’t change how I play. But he can try to inject a little more style into my life.