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Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

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There is no way to dress this up. Football clubs live and die by their results. Whilst players, coaches and supporters may on the odd occasion be 'economic with the truth', the table does not ever lie.

Now fully two months and five games into the season, normal service has resumed for the Montreal Impact. Or at least that's how it felt over at Stade Saputo last Saturday afternoon for the 'official' home opener; even down to the pouring rain, and dropping temperatures.

Inclement weather has been a feature of Impact life since the club gave birth to Stade Saputo. It was Victoria Day weekend 2008 when Canada's second soccer specific stadium (my how I detest that descriptive) played host to its very first professional football match.
 
The Whitecaps were in town for a USL fixture, and so was the MLS Commissioner, on the arm no less of Canada's grandest ever NBA standout star, Steve Nash.

Not only did the heavens up to display their full thunderstorm capabilities, the skies were full of the type of gloom Manchester has become globally famous for. The rain was lashing sideways so hard I wondered when the seagulls would be making an appearance off the subs bench. The match ended scoreless. Even the combined might of Messi and Ronaldo would have struggled to score that afternoon.

Outside of 2013's sophomore season which ended in a playoff debut for the Impact, since joining the league in 2012, the appearance of a type of MLS doom and gloom has hovered over Saputo Stadium since Day 1. This latest incarnation is inexplicable. Not plausible, let alone acceptable.

You explain then how this same set of players can take the globally-fabled Club America to the brink and back in a Champions League final and yet they can't carve out a decent opportunity against Portland until Diego Valeri stroked away one of the nicest looking goals Stade Saputo has ever seen. In doing so, he gave his team the unlikeliest of 0-2 leads last Saturday? It was the 70th minute of a home opener.

Now remind me again about the extraordinary levels of comfort, at his own great personal expense, which Impact president Joey Saputo went to, especially during the away legs of the Champions League, even pampering his players with a personal chef and the type of private security our Celine doesn't even get.

This kick-off to the MLS season is not exactly the proper nor fitting way to pay back the man.

Forty-eight hours or so after this latest home debacle, I had opportunity to chat with club assistant Enzo Concina, a man not known to mince his words. Concina was scything in his choice of words for his squad on TSN Radio 690, and rightfully so. The man who was part of Impact folklore back in 1994 spoke of a nasty bout of 'Champions League Hangover' had inflicted the dressing room. I couldn't offer any argument.

Nor to his suggestion the players may have gotten caught up in the instant fame and associated glory with their run to the final. It's not every day of course you get to play at Estadio Azteca and in front of over 61,000 at Stade Olympique: more cameras, media and paparazzi to meet than you would ordinarily witness at a brand Beckham launch event. My how the players must have gobbled up and consumed all the attention normally reserved for a regal occasion.
In their defence, it can't have been easy for them, especially when it all started crashing to earth as it did during that second half of the second leg. To go from a place at halftime where, let's be honest, many players must have thought they now had one hand on a trophy they could not ever dare to imagine would ever be within their grasp - to where ultimately it played out - would be devastating to the most seasoned of pros.

Wanting the earth to swallow you whole at that very moment - not an exaggeration. Back to life, back to reality, for a journey, by the cut of last week's dire performance, is far from over. Minds still very much clouded. Saturday at Saputo is time to finally disembark from this voyage of football fantasia.

The players, both individually and collectively, need to immediately turn these choppy MLS waters they have found themselves currently drowning in into some of that vintage Champions League wine we just all witnessed.

The only way to achieve this is with a wholesale change in both attitude and personnel. Without naming names, it is clear as day some, if not many who featured prominently in the Champions League plus MLS to this point, need to be given an 'Arsene'.

Rest, recuperation and where required cotton wool is that remedy. I thought after all for head coach Frank Klopas, managing player time on the pitch was a significant aspect to his footballing philosophy. You check the stats, you tell me if that's the case.

Although admirable to stay loyal to those lieutenants, it's now time to put some of them on official leave; some of whom appear to have already gone AWOL anyhow. We certainly witnessed a few missing in action types through the 90 minute fodder served up against a Portland team which is hardly setting the Western Conference alight this season. Neither for that matter is Saturday's opponent, Real Salt Lake, who 10 games in are not even amongst the playoff places.

Saturday's Impact Starting XI needs to contain equal measure football brain and football brawn. If it doesn't contain Patrice Bernier, don't go telling me that as he went the distance in Toronto midweek - as the Impact clawed their way to the final courtesy of the away goals rule yet once more - the club captain is incapable of starting two matches some 72 hours apart.

The Impact need to be smarter and savvier on the ball and actually keep hold of it instead of playing this panic-type play where the football resembles one which you see in a pinball machine. Hold up, serve up Bernier is a master of. Always has been.

Then let's factor in how the crowd will react Saturday to the mere fact Bernier would be starting his first league match of the season. Can't say from my vantage point from just behind the Impact bench last Saturday the crowd was fully or properly engaged through the 90 minutes. Why would they be with what was served up from their footballing heroes with zero wins in MLS to date?

The club's website put the 1-2 Portland reversal down to a 'difficult second half'. Well lose again this Saturday afternoon and your difficulties are going to last far longer than a mere 45 minutes.

Each week the Impact's playing squad are put in the best possible position to achieve success. Please do remind me again how that splendid new state of the art-to-be Impact training facility feels? You know the one where yet again Joey Saputo went into his own wallet for on your behalf. Not his.

Impact players owe it to themselves, their supporters and their pampered delicate states of football minds Saturday. Otherwise I fear another infamous tweet will be launched from the President's seat scattered amongst the supporters in the main stand.

Aimed four square at a squad which to this point in MLS has failed everyone. Well past time they put a broad MLS smile on the face of the one man who contributed so very much to make that Champions League run a reality.

Then whilst you are at it, remind yourselves who it was, come the final whistle April 29 over at Olympic Stadium, who as you lay prostrate on the pitch provided his hand, comforting and reassuring words as Joey Saputo went individually to his players to share a very private moment, in the most public of places at what must have felt like a family wake.
 
Shirk his responsibilities, Saputo most certainly did not. Shirk off MLS malaise, come kick off Saturday or come the final whistle don't be surprised if they are shaken off for you.

Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca
@TheSoccerNoel on Twitter

Montreal Impact vs Real Slat Lake Live on TSN690 Saturday – Kick Off 4pm et/1:00pm pt [www.TSN690.ca]