Two years ago, Montreal Impact president Joey Saputo sat down with the Montreal media to talk about how the club was preparing for the jump from the NASL to Major League Soccer.
MLS was going to be a much bigger challenge, a considerable step up from the second-tier NASL. A new team was going to have to be put together from scratch, a new coaching staff put in place and many new rules and regulations were going to have to be learned and mastered. And it all felt a little intimidating.
No surprises then that the Impact hired Jesse Marsch, a confident ex-player who, with his considerable experience in MLS, could help give the team a foothold in the league.
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Marsch helped the Impact build a solid team for the first season and led the side to a very respectable 12 wins and seventh place finish in the Eastern Conference.
But Saputo and sporting director Nick De Santis were, nevertheless, not satisfied with the way things went. The Impact were woeful away from home, managing only eight points out of a possible 51. Marsch took too long to get his tactics right and keeping local favorite and eventual team MVP Patrice Bernier on the bench for much of the first half of the season was a very unpopular decision.
Selecting Brian Ching in the MLS expansion draft and Donovan Ricketts through a trade soon after, as well as sending Eddie Johnson to the Seattle Sounders, were all decisions that didn’t go down very well.
By the time the season was over, Saputo and De Santis lost confidence in Marsch’s handling of the team and the two parties eventually parted ways.
When the Montreal Impact arrived in Italy last October for its post-season training camp, a few days after it was announced that Marsch had left the club, De Santis wasn’t in the mood to chat. In fact, he wasn’t ready to. A new direction was needed, but at the time, what that direction would be wasn’t very clear.
But what was clear was that MLS was no longer unfamiliar territory, and a new confidence had emerged: Saputo and De Santis were now ready to really lead the club themselves.
The Impact kick off their second season on the road against the Seattle Sounders on Saturday and the expectations are much higher this year as Saputo has made it clear that making the playoffs will be the minimum objective for Montreal.
The current roster is essentially the same as the one that ended the last season, but the biggest addition has been Italian midfielder Andrea Pisanu. The Sardinian native was brought in on a one year loan from Serie A side Bologna and will likely start on the right hand side of midfield where he is expected to link up with his former teammate Marco Di Vaio, who at times last year lacked the quality service that could really complement the movement he would make off the ball. Pisanu and Di Vaio have already shown some natural chemistry in pre-season training, and that bodes well for the club.
The concern with Pisanu, however, is whether his history of injury problems is a thing of the past or whether they will become a recurring issue this season. But there’s no doubting his quality – his quick goal against DC United last week was absolutely brilliant – and if he’s able to stay healthy this year he will bring the Impact something more in the final third.
Andres Romero was the other acquisition of the off-season. The 23-year-old started his career in promising fashion with Argentina’s under-20 side, but has had difficult time settling with professional teams. He’s spent the last few years in short stints with a slew of clubs in the top tiers of Argentina and Brazil.
De Santis is hoping that he can make his mark in MLS. Romero can play both on the outside of midfield and in the attack. When the Impact switched to a 4-4-2 formation last season, it didn’t really work out well, as Di Vaio and Andrew Wenger are clearly too similar to coexist. Romero has the characteristics of a second forward: a technical player who can take players on 1v1 and give service to his forward partner. Romero also has a lot of pace, something that Montreal generally lacked last year in the opposition’s half.
Romero certainly has the qualities that could benefit the Impact, but whether he’ll be able to produce is an unknown at this point.
The Impact also picked up three players in the MLS SuperDraft: midfielder Blake Smith and Fernando Monge and goalkeeper Brad Stuver. Smith, the only player of the three to have been given a contract so far, is a very quick left side player who can play on the outside of midfield or at fullback. Monge has already been cut, while the Impact have yet to make a decision on whether or not Stuver will be the club’s third goalkeeper.<br.
The major change in the off-season was the signing of a new head coach, Swiss native Marco Schällibaum. The 50-year-old comes with loads of experience in the top tiers of Swiss soccer both as a player and as a coach. He also spent time training coaches in several Asian countries with FIFA, a job that De Santis hopes Schällibaum will be able to continue with the club’s own assistant and academy coaches, especially with assistant Mauro Biello.
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The biggest task for Schällibaum will be to improve the Impact’s performance on the road, something he has highlighted as being a question of confidence and having the right mentality. He’ll also have the challenging task of keeping a very diverse locker room intact – something that Marsch failed to do. Schällibaum’s experience and proficiency in four different languages, especially English, French and Italian, certainly plays in his favour.
Schallibaum prides himself with having always had positive relations with his players. So far, he’s been received very well.
The team has fared well in pre-season, winning the Disney classic tournament with a 1-0 win against the Columbus Crew. Particularly impressive, has been the team’s defensive performance, with Alessandro Nesta and Matteo Ferrari defending the fort at centre back. But the centre back position still remains a point of fragility for the Impact as there aren’t too many alternatives. Nelson Rivas is just about always injured and can’t be counted on. Hassoun Camara isn’t a natural central defender and has been largely inconsistent and shaky in that position – he seems to be much better suited at fullback or in his natural place as a defensive midfielder.
Academy product Karl Ouimette is probably the only legitimate alternative at centre back and it is unlikely that Nesta and Ferrari, with their advanced age and depreciating physically state – especially the former’s – will be able to play game in and game out this season.
The other point of fragility for the Impact is their lack of a viable replacement for Bernier in midfield. Montreal has plenty of midfield players, but none that can really move the ball about and initiate plays the way that Bernier can. And that’s a concern, because if he picks up an injury at some point, the Impact’s play will take a heavy hit.
Compared to the team that started the expansion season last year, with a much improved backline, a stable goalkeeper in Troy Perkins, a dynamic midfield with Bernier and Felipe pulling the strings, new alternatives in the outside midfield positions and a seemingly very sharp and settled Di Vaio leading the attack, the Impact have a much better team this time around and have a good chance of making the playoffs. Although it must be said: the Eastern Conference has gotten a lot stronger as well.
In all likelihood, the Impact will still need another important signing or two, which De Santis is waiting until the summer to complete. If there’s one thing De Santis has been very good at during his time as a sporting director, it’s been making the right changes in mid-season.
Schällibaum will also have some history to defy, as foreign coaches have been largely unsuccessful in MLS. There will definitely be a big learning curve for him, but he seems very disposed on letting Saputo and De Santis handle the transfers and business side of things. He’s going to be more of a coach than a manager, and surely that will make things easier.
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