Montreal vs Puerto Rico, today at 2:30pm.

The Impact starts today its first of five games in Saputo Stadium, Montreal.

There are only 11 games left in the NASL regular season and Montreal is last in the standings and 9 points behind the last playoff qualification seed, Fort Lauderdale Strikers.

It's an uphill road from now on and we have our last chance to build up a positive momentum with this 5 games at home. The recent inclusions, Ryan Pore and Cameron Knowles to the roster reveals the management's commitment on this current situation.

Pore (#32), 4 years of MLS experience with Kansas City, 2010 Most Valuable Player in second division and 2009 golden boot, is on loan from Portland Timbers until the end of the season and can be the type of player that can boost the attack for this last half of the season. I personally remember him being remarkable good while playing against Montreal and have lots of expectations on his debut today.

Today Puerto Rico visits Saputo Stadium in 2nd place on the standings with 29 points Montreal has 12pts only) and as current champions will be a tough opponent.

Game will be on TV on the waves of Radio Canada and will be a nice chance to boost the soccer passion in a beautiful summer Sunday on Montreal while preparing our debut in MLS next year.

See you guys there!

Here are the pre-game comments.

Carolina 2 - Impact 0 ; Lets rest for a week and meditate.

source: montrealimpact.com

Contrary to previous games, Impact tried it Sunday night. I know football is not a sport where statistics are relevant, and that's the beauty of it, but in a game where you outplay the opponent 14 shots to 10, 5 corners to 2  is a little unfair to say the team is a total disaster. And even loosing 2-0 the team held the pressure being caught off-side only once and looked for the goal professionally showing and impressive fair play with 2 fouls committed in all game, that is remarkable.


Important fact is Eduardo Sebrango, a 38 years old retired forward, came back to help the injured roster this week and created most of the attacking in 2nd half. As I said in previous postings, this team needs to find a source of motivation whether it be academy player Mircea Ilcu or retired forward Sebrango.

Give the team a couple of games to adapt this new era without Dos Santos, we are half way through this season and players know is not a matter of MLS or not, is a matter of pride and to keep their value in the market, because Impact wont be keeping most of this group at this pace.

Next game on Wednesday July 13, 2011 - Saputo Stadium - 7:30pm.
See you guys there.

Impact 0 - Puerto Rico 0. You can't build a team in one day.

After two consecutive days of headlines about the Impact (not easy) we sadly ended accepting the departure of a very nice guy, Marc Dos Santos, who I met personally last week. It was an honest move after a very long streak of bad results. Apparently leading an heterogeneous group like the Impact was harder than he thought. Now is Nick's job to get the group together, yes the same players he chose four months a go.

Evan Bush - montrealimpact.com

Nick Des Santis, temporary coach, only had one day to get familiar with the team and the system before facing the current 2nd division champions, Puerto Rico Islanders.We cannot blame him, you really cannot do much in one day and what we saw Wednesday night was a team with the same old problems, so I would wait at least 2 more games before start judging.

We did have good news, in the attendance, which reached more than 10,000 seats (more than 80%). Not bad at all for a Wednesday night in a regular season match even considering kids are on vacations since last week.

On the pitch, it was Hassoun Camara who came to my attention all game long. It is a waste to use him as central back, he needs more freedom in the midfield and I would love to see him playing at least once with David Testo as double pivots. So the good news would be to see Pizzolitto back and moving Camara to midfield, but What to do with Amir Lowery? Good question. Well that is Nick's job and not mine, for the moment.

Next game will be at Cary, North Carolina when facing the Railhawks Sunday at 7pm.