In their last season in the NASL before they make the big move to the MLS the Montreal Impact had what can only be categorized as a disappointing one.  Montreal is very hard on its sports teams and unless you are a winner you are a failure.  While there are many factors you have to look at before deciding if a team’s season was a success or failure, the bottom line is that the Montreal Impact did not make the playoffs and in Montreal that equals failure.  Especially since the team had been so successful for so long.

You know that a team did not have a successful period to a season if they end with a different head coach than they started with.  Marc Dos Santos started the 2011 season as the head coach and Nick De Santis as the Sporting Director.  By not even the midway point of the season, due to the team’s lackluster start, Dos Santos had stepped down as coach and De Santis was appointed interim head coach while maintaining his Sporting Director title.  After the coaching change the team seemed to respond to the new coach and they played much better soccer over the last two months of the season.

Now I wrote that they responded to the coaching change, but more accurate would have been to say that the player personnel changes that De Santis made seemed to reinvigorate the team.  Players like Mignane Diouf, Cameron Knowles, Amir Lowery, Miguel Montano, Ryan Pore, Greg Sutton, Marco Terminesi, Sinisa Ubiparipovic, Ian Westlake, and Eduardo Debrango were brought onto the team while others were let go.  It was an almost entirely new look for the team and it worked.  It built up gradually with them going 1-2-2 in July, 3-1-1 in August and 3-1-1 in September.  An impressive record of just 1 loss in their last 9 games.  They began to gel and show potential.  Unfortunately it was too little too late.

The Impact’s season came down to the last game.  They found themselves 1 point out of a playoff position.  Doing what they had to they won their last game on the road in Atlanta by a score of 4-0 (including a hat trick by striker Ryan Pore).  Luck was not with them as the team they were battling with for the last playoff spot, the Minnesota Stars, also won their game 2-1.  They ended up 1 point short of making the playoffs.  Tough.  The Impact only has to look at the beginning of the season for the reason for that.  Winning only 2 games out of their first 14 was too big a hole for them to dig themselves out of.  They missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2001 season.

It was not only doom and gloom for the Impact this season.  Their hard times led to them looking for answers and the answers came in the form of some new faces and some familiar ones as well.  The veteran Eduardo Sebrango (38-years-old or should I say young?) had retired after the last season.  He was now convinced, though I’m not sure it took much convincing, to come back to the team to play.  Sebrango immediately had a positive effect on the team due to the experience he has and the passion he plays the game with.  His influence on the team comes on and off the field with his showing the other younger players what it takes to be a professional soccer player.  The guy did not play like a 38-year-old.  He had plenty of juice in those old legs and once again scored some important goals for the Impact.  In 13 games with the team he notched 6 goals.  Always a pure goal scorer.

Due to injuries to strikers Reda Agourram and Ali Gerba the team brought in Ryan Pore and Miguel Montano.  The Pore-Montano partnership clicked from the very beginning.  Montano was the playmaker and Pore was the finisher.  Between them they notched 8 goals in a combined 17 games.

At the beginning of the season Bill Gaudette was to be the team’s number one keeper.  Early on in the season he suffered a bad ankle injury and Evan Bush was called on to step in.  Without the stellar play of the goalkeeper Montreal would not have even had a chance to make the playoffs.  He played so well that he was awarded the 2011 NASL Golden Glove Award, given to the goalkeeper with the best regular season goals-against-average (0.76).  Even more impressive coming from a team that did not make the playoffs.

Defender Hassoun Camara was also recognized by the league with being appointed to the NASL All-Star team called the Best XI.  The 27-year-old centreback joined the Impact in the offseason from France’s Ligue 2.  He played a team high 22 games, finished second in minutes played (1,949), scored 2 goals, and assisted on 1 while being part of the defense that only allowed 0.96 goals per game (2^nd in the league).

Finally, in the midfield Ian Westlake and Sinisa Ubiparipovic were bright lights.  Westlake is a Brit who joined the team in the middle of July.  In his 13 games his notched 2 goals while stabilizing the middle of the field for Montreal.  Previously he had played for such sides as England’s U21, Leeds United and Ipswich Town.  Ubiparipovic is more of an offensive player and after joining the team at the beginning of August he figured largely in the strong play of the late season by the Impact.  In 10 games he had 3 goals and 4 assists.  Most of the offense came through this player.

Towards the end of the season the Impact made two announcements: That Saputo Stadium would not be ready for the beginning of the MLS season due to renovations and as such the team’s first couple of home games will be played at Olympic Stadium.  And that Jesse Marsch would be the team’s head coach in 2012.  Marsch worked most recently as an assistant coach with the U.S. Men’s National Team and he himself played for 14 seasons in the MLS.

Just today the team released a roster of 25 players who will take part in the 6 day evaluation camp in preparation for next season.  None of this season’s Impact players have contracts with the team for next season.  Everyone is starting off at zero with an equal opportunity to make the MLS squad.  Ali Gerba, Camara, Sebrango, Agourram, Terminesi, and Pierre-Rudolph Mayard will miss the camp due to injuries.  Bush, Sutton, Gaudette, Maxime Crepeau (keeper), Pore, Testo, Ubiparipovic, Montano, and Di Lorenzo are some of the players who will be there.  Marsch had also invited six players (Wes Knight, Alexis Zywiecki, Bratislav Ristic, Jose Javier Del Aguila, Jamie Watson, and Jeremiah White) to the camp.

Two important dates are also coming up for the team as they transition into the new league.  Two days after the MLS Cup is awarded, which is scheduled to happen on November 20, 2011, the Montreal Impact will take part in an expansion draft.  Every team in the MLS is to submit a roster with 11 protected players.  Everyone who is not protected is up for grabs.  The Impact is allowed to pick up to 10 players from the other 18 teams in the league.  Second important date is in January 2012 when the MLS SuperDraft of college players will take place in Kansas City.

To fill out their roster the Impact has the right to negotiate with any one player from the NASL/USL.  They have also been on scouting trips to Europe to look at players in Germany and Italy then also to South American countries like Uruguay and Argentina.  With a salary cap of an estimated $2.81 million next season the team will have more money than they are used to spending on players.  Plus there are exceptions made (meaning only part of their salaries count against the cap) for three designated (meaning star players like David Beckham or Thierry Henry) players.