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Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

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Following last Saturday night’s Didier Drogba-inspired and morale-boosting 5-1 victory against fellow playoff contenders the Philadelphia Union, the Montreal Impact went into the All-Star break in a very respectable fourth position in the East. With matches in hand against all three teams above them, they could conceivably dislodge NYCFC from top spot if they win both games in hand over the best team in the east. 

All well and good on first inspection one could think. 

However, when comparing with the same stage last season after twenty matches the overall records are remarkably similar. This season’s point total is only one better than in 2015, with the Impact conceding an identical amount of goals as last season - 29 in total. Just like last season, so many were preventable. The set pieces are still very much an Achilles heel for the club.

Statistics, of course, are more misleading than a Roy Hodgson game plan. The fact of the matter is the Impact’s overall performances and work rates this season under Mauro Biello are of a noticeably higher level than they were under Frank Klopas in 2015. Costly ill-discipline, which was a hallmark of the team under Klopas, is now having far less an influence.  

Plain and simple, the players are far more willing for Biello and in a sport where the narrowest of margins can determine outcomes, I’m sure there is a statistic out there which precisely measures how many extra points over the course of a season that brings to the Impact.  

It has been anything, though, but an extended honeymoon period for Biello at the helm. Late April’s humbling defeat to archrival Toronto FC during the Stade Saputo home opener heralded what would turn out to be a very troublesome six match winless streak for the Impact. Biello was astute enough to remark following the club’s second straight road victory to start the season that as much as he could not have asked for a more perfect start, he was fully aware difficult moments lie ahead for the players and his team. It was his job to be fully prepared for those difficult and challenging moments a season brings even the very best clubs. 

Boy though, did the Impact’s winless streak end in the most dramatic of fashions. 

Drogba’s 94th-minute opportunist free kick set off one of the greatest ever goal celebrations Stade Saputo has witnessed since its May 2008 opening, with the home team ultimately prevailing in a five-goal thriller against the Los Angeles Galaxy. If the Impact could have bottled the atmosphere that late May Saturday night sales would have oustripped Drogba, Laurent Ciman and Ignacio Piatti jersey sales combined. In, fact throw in Patrice Bernier’s jersey sales for good measure.   

Oddly much has been made this season of the Impact’s record with and without Drogba in the lineup. When merely glancing at the numbers, the Impact have lost more than they have won when Drogba starts. Those statistics in isolation do not come close to revealing the full story. Drogba’s contribution runs far deeper than his mere presence in the lineup. Just ask the likes of Michael Salazar and what he states that Drogba’s mere presence has added a new dimension and outlook to the game for the second round Super Draft pick. 

Whilst a global superstar in Drogba, who truly revels in the spotlight, will always get major attention from media, supporters and opponents alike, let there be no dispute - this is Piatti’s team. 

The 2015 Impact MVP has already matched his 12-goal output from last term. Ever since making his debut back in August 2014, Piatti’s star has shone brightest, his stock risen astutely. Quiet, self-assuming plus very much the family man, and even with a rapidly improving command of French, always will let his sublime football feet do his talking. 

Contracted through 2017 the 31-year old is without question one of the most elite and gifted of players to grace a  Major League Soccer pitch. His value in the open market most certainly in the eight-figure bracket, Piatti represents the best bit of football business the Impact have ever achieved in its two-plus decade history.

The Impact have performed most admirably in the summer transfer market. Shipping Alexander out and bringing in the likes of Matteo Mancosu, who scored his first goal against the Union, and capturing the signature again of Hernán Bernardello improves in an instant a team which was in desperate need of adding both a proven goal scorer and a ball winner. It is no coincidence that with Bernadello back with a club he left in summer 2014, club captain, Patrice Benier and the only player remaining from the 2011 expansion draft, Callum Mallace  had the best outing of any central midfield combination for the Impact so far this season. 

As has become a growing tradition across the province in recent times last Saturday night at Stade Saputo the Impact celebrated ‘Christmas in July’ – Drogba’s hat trick, Piatti’s 4th MLS goal of the week this season  and the 5-1 victory were the best possible gifts for a hometown support which has only failed once in selling out Stade Saputo so far this season. 

As for the growing legion of Impact supporters which now travel to away games and just like supporters of MLS clubs across the league – it is now well past time MLS got into the gift giving business. It is frankly absurd and without a shred of reason or logic that in a day and age where the current eastern conference leaders, New York City FC paid a $100m expansion fee to join a league which has the lofty ambitions of joining the elite of world football by 2022 that clubs are still shackled when it comes to travel. 

Or more to the point the method of travel for clubs as they criss-cross our vast continent for road matches which can be three time zones and thousands of miles away. Of the seventeen road matches each season, clubs can only charter aircraft for a maximum two return journeys. Is it any surprise that even the very best in the league falter heavily away from home? 

In 2015 not one MLS club returned a winning record on the road. Could you ever forsee that happening to a Bayern Munich or a Barcelona, or even a Leicester City and yet they were still crowned champions? 

Could you imagine for one moment that if any of the clubs participating in this summer’s sparkling International Champions Cup were told by organizers they had to travel economy whilst traveling to their matches they would actually participate. Plus one wonders for Thursday’s All-Star match - how many of the MLS executives who travelled from their Manhattan offices to San Jose actually flew out and back economy.  

The Impact’s ‘second half’ of the season gets underway in Washington Sunday evening, with only fourteen matches left in the regular season if they can finally display a far better organized defensive structure and a greater consistency from the set piece there is no reason why they can not push for supremacy in the wide open Eastern Conference. Where even the .500 playing Toronto FC with key players on their way back will fancy their chances. It’s not how you start, but it’s how you finish which counts most.

Mark then Sunday, October 16th down in your agenda now - the penultimate match of the regular season when Toronto FC come calling once more to Stade Saputo. No one will need reminding how the final match of the regular season played out between these two clubs in 2015.

DC United Vs Montreal Impact Live TSN 690 Sunday Kick Off 6:30pm et / 3:30pm pt