Relive the Best moments of 2009 in Montréal footy..

It's Christmas eve and I'm watching my girlfriend dye her hair blue again!? Ya..she's pushing thirty and still insists on dressing like a teenager (does that make me creepy?), and it reminded me of the 1st time she did that, right before the Impact CCL quarterfinal game at the Olympic Stadium..

So I figured we should all relive a couple of the best moments in Montréal soccer from 2009. Here we go..

Impact-Santos Laguna February 25th 2009, 55,000 people gather at the Big O in the middle of winter to watch the Impact beat a 1st division Mexican side 2-0 (Yes I know, lets just act like this wasn't a two leg affair, aiigghtt!) :

Great locker room scenes in this one..




The first all-Canadian USL-1 final Impact-Whitecaps, October 17th 2009.
Montreal wins its 3rd title:



Happy Holidays! Ahh, screw political correctness...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Awesome Goal Celebration..

I know this is a couple of weeks old and was posted elsewhere, but I'm bored and the off-season is sinking in so take a look at this very original goal celebration...

Just to put you guys in context, last January Hull City was getting drubbed 4-0 at halftime by Man City and manager Phil Brown decided to give his troops a "talking to" on the field...

Hull midfielder Jimmy Bullard, has a blast poking fun at that after scoring on a penalty to tie the match 1-1 against Man City this year in late November, enjoy!...

Decision in the NASL/USL mess to come before end of 2009

According to this Corus sports article, Neil Buethe of the USSF has stated that a decision will be rendered in this case by next week or most certainly by the end of 2009.

"La Fédération veut régler ce dossier. C'est un dossier prioritaire. Les formations impliquées dans le différend doivent s'attendre à mettre de l'eau dans leur vin mais nous annoncerons le résultat d'ici la fin de l'année. Nous espérons que notre décision sera soutenue par les équipes et leurs partisans qui continueront d'encourager leurs favoris peu importe dans quelle ligue ils évolueront."

To roughly translate the quote into english, Buethe basically explains that the USSF really wants to take care of this situation, as it is a top priority. All teams involved have to expect to make certain concessions, but we will announce the result before the end of the year. We hope that our decision will be supported by all teams and their fans, who we hope will continue to support their teams no matter what league they are playing in.

This all but confirms that we are headed to some sort of a compromise...

The saga continues.

All the latest NASL/USL news right here..

You can get all the new info right here!!!

Canadian MNT involved in a fixed match..

According to this article put out by MINA ( Macedonian International News Agency), the recent Macedonia- Canada friendly was fixed by UEFA referee Anton Genov. You can take a look, here..

If only there was this type of scrutiny after a certain Gold Cup semi-final in 2007, right Mr. Archundia??

Don Garber visits the great white north..

MLS commissioner Don Garber was in town yesterday, and apparently had a very productive meeting with Joey Saputo, Quebec finance minister Raymond Bachand and goofy-looking Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay.

Ironically, it was also the first major snowfall of the winter season in Montreal, so assuming the Impact will be announced as the 19th team at 2010 MLS First kick, as reported here by Ben Rycroft, I'm pretty sure Garber is aware that playing some kind of an August-May type schedule is for the most part impossible and stupid.

To me, this news was as refreshing as taking the "Nestea Plunge"... All the endless speculation/hearsay and tales of impending doom about 2nd division soccer on the footy blogosphere, have left me worn out and annoyed ( ya..I know, I should stop being an obsessed geek) .

So...getting back to the "Montreal MLS expansion summit" (excuse the hyperbole), apparently the meeting with the finance minister lasted 2 hours. So we can be pretty sure that this deal is done and they are just ironing out the final details, as ministers usually have better things to do then participate in preliminary discussions. Also, for the first time I believe, the Impact has officially spoken of and posted the MLS logo on their website.

One of the "little things" left to be negociated is the provincial government apparently only wanting to pony-up 20$ million, leaving Joey to foot the bill for the remaing 5$ million. This was discussed on yesterday's edition of It's Called Football, here...

This supposed government "cheapness", is all the more frustrating when you consider that Quebec premier Jean Charest was recently quoted as being all gung ho about forking over 100-150$ million for a new arena in Quebec City, for a hockey team that doesn't even exist..Oh, yes..Pardon me its hockey, so that is REALLY important..

Anyways, I'm just thankful for that small breather from all the negative drama surrounding TOA/NASL/USL/USSF/CSA/ABCDEFG ect. ect.

And I guess, seeing as its the holiday season we should be grateful for what we have, right? We could be in FCNY's situation!?

I know I should not take joy in the misery of others, but I gotta admit I kinda feel a little better now..Thanks for listening (reading??)..

A casual Montreal sports fan tries to understand USL/NASL/MLS..

With all the rumors, confusion and different scenarios being played out for the 2010 season in Northern North America's 2nd division, the typical casual sports fan in Montreal has absolutely no clue what is going on with the Impact and typically I can literally see their eyes glaze over when I attempt to explain it to them....

Usually the conversation goes something like this:

Casual Montreal sports fan (cmsf) : So..you like the Impacts, eh?

Me: Ya, I got season tickets. You should check out a game sometime, the caliber of play slowly keeps getting a little better every year in North America...

CMSF: Uhhh ( seems uncomfortable) ... Ya..uh, maybe, but I heard they didn't do so good this year...But I'll go for sure when they play in .. MSL?? You know, the Major League.. (big smile)

Me: Well, actually they won the USL-1 championship this year..It's true they did start out slow but they finished strong and went undefeated in the playoffs and they.. (interupts me)

CMSF: So their going MLS next year?? (seems genuinely excited)

Me: No, but they will almost certainly be there in 2012 as long as they get the money from the provincial government for the stadium expansion. Ya..I'm not too sure for next year yet, they will probably be in the New North American Soccer League but nothing is sure yet..

CMSF: (gives a puzzled look) What league is that? What about that other league you said they were in, the USL?!

ME: A bunch of the owners in the USL-1 wanted to breakaway and form their own league so they could have more control over the direction the league takes, and they decided to call it NASL, you know like the old league the Manic played in?

CMSF: So, their gonna play in the North American League next year?

Me: Most probably but its still not confirmed yet, the soccer federations from the US and Canada still have to sanction the league before it can be made official..There is still a possibility they could force the teams back to USL-1...

CMSF: ( has completely phazed out) Oh, OK.

Me: .....

CMSF: Hey, the Habs played awesome yesterday!!


Me: *sigh* Ya...

USSF, CSA to meet with the TOA and USL

According to Brian Quarstad at Inside Minnesota Soccer, the United States Soccer Federation, the Canadian Soccer Association and the Puerto Rican Football Federation are scheduled to meet with the TOA and the USL this Sunday December 6th in New York. The goal of the meeting is obviously to come to some kind of conclusion to all this mess.

Read on here..

Hopefully, this means that at some point this coming week, we will be able to get some kind of news or idea as to what exactly we can expect for the Impact's 2010 season.

1) NASL will be sanctionned? It may seem logical, seeing all the work they seem to be putting into this, trademarks, domain names and hiring PR firms. However, who really knows whats going on behind the scenes..

2) The federations (and by this I mean mostly the USSF) ''force'' the teams back to USL-1, along with some kind of promise by Nurock to give the owners some form of control over the first division.

3) Sort of a mix of scenario 1 and 2, where the ''new'' Northern North American 2nd division is totally independant from USL but plays under their umbrella and pays them a small fee to use the brand, logo and for front office stuff like scheduling and other paper pushing type things.

What do you think?

Either way the season is 4 months away and some kind of a decision has to made soon as season tickets must be sold, schedules made and TV/ Internet streaming must be arranged..

So whats going on... ''New'' NASL bits and pieces

Ok, so here we go with some updates on the ''new'' NASL:

- As most of us soccer geeks already know the Cleveland City Stars have been terminated?? by the USL. Am I the only one who finds it odd that a league has the power to ''terminate'' a team, especially seeing as they were apparently in the midst of putting the finishes touches on the sale of the club? They were expected to be self-relegated to USL-2 had the sale been completed.

-Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota, wrote an awesome piece on how Nike should be taking its part of the blame for this whole crisis/mess. A must read here...

- Rochester Raging Rhinos (I know but it makes me smile to add the ''raging'' part) owner Rob Clark has totally flip-flopped on his vocal anti TOA stance and has signed up to be the 10th team in the ''new'' NASL.

Resident Rhinos blogger/journalist Jeff DiVeronica published an e-mail he received on his blog ''Devo's Direct kicks" from , and I'm sorry to go there, a complete douchebag who goes into a tirade about the NASL's supposed plan to strongarm the MLS into merging with them??
You can read that gem here..

- So who's left in USL-1?

Austin
Portland
Puerto Rico

? 3 teams....OUCH!! Oh, sorry maybe 4, how could I have forgot FCNY (well..everyone else did so I guess I will forgive myself)

I'm shortly expecting a case study on how to totally mess up an acquisition featuring Nurock soccer holdings or whatever their name is.

Nurock's handling of this whole mess = Ultimate Fail!

- I'm hearing all kinds of different info on when we should expect a decision on USSF sanctionning, so I won't give my own opinion about that, but I will say that I don't see how the USSF could possibly not sanction the league.

With 3 or 4 teams left in USL-1, it is obvious that Nurock has lost this battle and they would be well advised to just back off and concentrate on the PDL and their youth soccer structure. I mean you can't force millionnaire/billionnaire team owners to play by your rules and just expect them to shut up and take it.

- As for the Impact, besides announcing some player signings (David Testo back for 2 years), nothing substantial about the new league has come out of the front office. I also find it odd that Joey Saputo has still not come out and made a firm commitment about the NASL.

Perhaps he is waiting for sanctionning to be approved to make an announcement, but the reality is that Impact fans and supporters have still not been given a definite answer as to what league the team will be in next year!? All signs point to NASL but still, its December 4th and still nothing..

More ramblings soon....

( cross-posted to the 24th minute)

Braz and Placentino back for 2 more years..

The Impact announced today that both Adam Braz and Rocco Placentino have re-signed with the club for 2 more seasons.

Great news as these 2 are local players that play their asses off for the Impact, and really want to play in Montreal.

Adam Braz, despite occasional brain cramps in the box, is a solid presence at right back and is surprisingly very good on centers and set pieces. Rocco always brings an offensive spark and has scored some big goals for the Impact last season. He also seems to genuinely care about the supporters, as evidenced by his phone call to an Ultras Montreal member to explain his absence for the second leg of the semi-finals against Puerto Rico.

It's a good start, but Nick De Santis has really got to push to bring back player of the year and midfield general David Testo as well as Leo Di Lorenzo. Roberto Brown has hinted towards playing in his Native Panama next season, so he might not be back, which could open a space for young Reda Agourram who played for the Impact's reserve side in Trois-Rivieres and was recently interviewed by fifa.com.

Now, if we could figure out what league where playing in...

Ottawa to join TOA league?

This article came out today suggesting a group of investors want to put a TOA team in Ottawa Baseball Stadium:




If this one happens it would be a major slap in the face to USL, especially since they where in all their glory when they released this overly optimistic press release, touting Ottawa and Edmonton as expansion franchises.

Apparently the USSF will be meeting in Seattle during MLS cup week-end, so we should get some more answers early next week as to what league the Impact will play in for the 2010 season.

Interesting to note, when Nick DeSantis was asked if a representative of the Impact would be in Tampa this week-end for the USL's annual general meetings his response was ''Uhhhh, I don't think so. We will be in Seattle for the MLS cup, seeing as we were invited.''

Should be a week-end filled with more rumors, half-truths and maybe an announcement....

Don Garber talks Montreal MLS expansion...

Don Garber briefly talked about Montreal MLS expansion during his state of the league address:

"On the subject of MLS expansion, he said: ”I know we’ll have 18 teams in 2011. We’re having productive conversastions with Montreal to be No. 19. There’s no timetable as to when or if we’ll agree. We’re in no active discussions of note with a 20th team and there’s no time table for a 20th team.”

Thats really a pure politician style statement , and very open to interpretation. I'm still getting info that the announcement will be made during the course of this week.However since the person who gave me this info does not want to go on the record, it might not pan out . Word is the deal has been pretty much done for a few months now, and they are just ironing out minor details.

Stay tuned...

Dos Santo back for 2 more years

The Impact have re-signed Marc Dos Santos to a 2 year contract:

MONTREAL — The Montreal Impact officialized Friday Marc Dos Santos’ title as head coach of the Montreal team by announcing his return for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. “We are excited about the idea of having Marc with us for the next two seasons,” declared Impact technical director Nick De Santis. “He has proved his abilities as a coach by leading the team to the USL-1 championship. He managed to instill his winning mentality to all players. He is a coach who is devoted to his work and who is strongly committed to the team’s success.”

In his first season at the helm of the Impact, Dos Santos was named finalist for the Coach of the Year award of the USL First Division. He led the team in all its victories in the regular season and maintained a 12-8-6 record in 26 matches in the USL-1. He then led the Impact to a third championship in club history after six consecutive wins in the playoffs.

“I’m very happy to be back with the Impact,” mentioned Dos Santos. “This agreement shows the amount of trust that the team managers have in me. I’m thrilled to have won in 2009, but there are still many other things that I wish to win with the Impact.”

Marc Dos Santos’ assistant coaches will be announced at a later date.

TRIP TO PORTUGAL
Nick De Santis and Marc Dos Santos are back from a 10-day trip to Portugal. They had the opportunity to meet with Portuguese clubs, evaluate a number of players and visit training facilities.

EDUARDO SEBRANGO OPERATED
Impact forward Eduardo Sebrango underwent a successful surgery Tuesday for a sports hernia (groin). He should recover in time for the start of training camp.

More on the TOA/USL situation later...

Is winning really the only thing that matters?

When I started this blog I intended to limit my posts to only things related to Montreal soccer and to a certain extent Canada. But seeing as my girlfriend of 10 years is Algerian, and I was looking forward to watching the Egypt-Algeria World Cup qualifier with her father this Saturday, this bit of news really hit home..

In Egypt, the president of the national football federation had a message for the fans before the crucial Egypt-Algeria world cup qualifier set to go on Saturday "Do whatever you want , only one thing counts, victory for our country"

It seems some supporters took that statement a bit too literally, as evidenced by several Algerian national team players who were injured after their bus was attacked by Egyptian fans when they arrived in Cairo. Check out these links to videos of the attacks:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb4kv0_les-joueurs-algeriens-blesses-au-ca_sport

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb4lv2_equipe-dalgeire-caillaissee_sport

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYM62ye762I&feature=player_embedded

I know rivalries can run deep in world football but this should most definitely be sanctioned , especially after Algeria was deducted 2 points because some of their fans lit some smoke bombs at one of their World Cup qualifiers.

Three players were said to be injured from rocks thrown at the bus. Apparently the police did absolutely nothing to prevent this from happening, even thought they were escorting the bus.

The World cup qualifier between the two squads kicks off on Saturday and Egypt must beat Algeria by 2 goals to force a tie breaker between the two nations. Algeria is on the verge of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1986.

Imagine for one second if this scene had occurred in the streets of Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal? Somehow I don't picture the Voyageurs, Canada's national team supporters group, pelting the Reggae boyz' bus with rocks at their arrival to BMO field...

TOA/USL Rumors, hearsay and quick hits..

So, after another day of speculation and endless babbling on North American soccer forums, here are some tidbits of info and rumors I have came across which some may find interesting, while others may find them angering and be quick to point out that they are nothing but BS ;) :

- As we all know one of the big arguments the TOA had brought forward was the supposed FIFA rule that all leagues must be owned and operated by its team owners. Well according to some research done by Kartik Krishnaiyer at The Kartik Report , no such rule actually exists.

- According to Radio-Canada, Joey Saputo was scheduled to have talks with USL yesterday evening. Bob Lenarduzzi was seemingly unaware of this and said that he had not spoken to representatives of the USL for weeks. Hmmm...they might want to coordinate their messages cause it really seems like were getting two different stories. A good idea might be to start using that expensive PR firm out of St.-Louis, that TOA spokesman Jeff Cooper hooked up with to represent the TOA.

- A Radio-Canada journalist declared this morning on Sports Extra, that the Impact might be trying to have it both ways by playing their main squad in the TOA league, while at the same time having the reserves , the Attak recent Canadian Soccer League champions, play in USL-1 out of Saputo Stadium.

The USL-1 would appear weak by allowing this, as it would confirm that they are nothing more then a reserve league while the upstart TOA , who would house the main Impact squad, would be seen as having a superior level of play. Perception goes a long way....

- I was told by someone close to the Impact organization, that an ultimate meeting is expected to be held next week in Florida with some members of the TOA and USL administration. We should find out exactly what the Impact's status is for 2010 after those talks.

- The Tampa Bay Rowdies, as most people have already heard, are back in the USL-1 camp for next season. Apparently certain legal and financial considerations are the cause of this.


I expect more of this type of back and forth banter leading up to the ultimate decison which should come some time next week.

Saputo "Talks still ongoing with USL"

UPDATE: 5h55pm ( bottom of the post)

Joey Saputo made the following statement this morning:

Following the release issued earlier today by the Team Owners Association (TOA), Montreal Impact President Joey Saputo made the following statement: “I wish to reiterate that there are still ongoing talks between the Montreal Impact and the USL. We continue working on different options for the 2010 season, including the possibility that the Impact take part in the USL-1 or in a new league. We created the Team Owners Association in January 2008 in order to take our destiny in our own hands, as is the case in any other league worldwide. It is already November 10 and we needed to submit to the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) an application for the creation of a new league for this option to remain viable.”

So once again, we will have to wait and see to find out what the deal is for 2010. Quite frankly this is dragging on and on and the general sentiment among most fans is "hurry up and make a decision". Joey Saputo seems to be using this press release as a bargaining chip to gain concessions from USL, and that might just be a good strategy after USL released their "Everything is great and beautiful" press release last week.

More on this later....

Update:

Joey Saputo also clarified his position in relation to the Team Owners Association:

"Montreal is fully committed to its fellow teams and to the new league application. As Chairman of the Team Owners Association (TOA), I can say that myself and every TOA member has always been open to discussions with the USL, which would give the teams the requisite ownership and control over our league. However, since USL has historically and currently been unwilling to grant us that necessary ownership and control, we have applied to launch a new league and that endeavour has my personal attention and commitment."

It goes on and on and on and on......

Vancouver radio station CKNW says new TOA league being announced today

CKNW out of Vancouver is reporting this morning that 7 Team owner's Association clubs will announce they are forming a new league today.

This to me, comes as somewhat of a surprise considering the whole Minnesota fiasco and Tampa apparently being back in the USL camp. Maybe the Tampa organization was merely at the USL-1 meetings last week as some kind of a fly on the wall for the TOA?

So I guess we can assume that since the Minnesota Thunder is all but dead the seven team league will be made up of:

Montreal
Vancouver
Carolina
Miami
St-Louis
Atlanta
Tampa

I wonder if other teams will want to jump ship once the breakaway league becomes official?

Should be an interesting day.

Update: It's now official according to this press release

The surprising part is the fact that Minnesota is included in the list of teams? Pretty weird when you consider they just released all their players. The Tampa Bay Rowdies were also not included as a member of the new TOA.

Rob Clark "Vancouver and Montreal will probably be back in USL next year"

Amateurish Rochester Rhinos owner Rob Clark commenting on the USL/TOA debacle on the Soccer Sam radio show, declares that it is probable Vancouver and Montreal will be back in USL-1 in 2010.

He also mentions that if Montreal and Vancouver don't come back, he will start a ''petition'' to not have any exhibition matches with the TOA league. Strong words from Mr. big time sports team owner himself, who we all remember could not even handle proper security for 30 travelling away fans during a Rhinos-Impact game in late May, resulting in a scuffle between fans at the end of the game.

His whole solution to that problem was to call Joey Saputo to bitch and moan and suggest that supporters (and in the case of the Stampede I use this word loosely) from both sides be banned from going to the other team's stadium. All this instead of providing proper security as is done in stadiums all over the world. Whatever, keep up with the music being played during the course of play, great soccer atmosphere you have going on down there Rob!

Anyways, getting back to next season it is starting to seem more and more probable that the so-called TOA league will not get off the ground, especially with news coming out this morning that the Minnesota Thunder, one of the teams heavily involved in the TOA, have just released all their players as they have not been payed for some time. Brian Quarstad of Inside Minnesota Soccer reports on this here.

The Impact have got to get out of this bush-league situation ASAP as they have simply outgrown the league. Bring on MLS, fast...

Montreal to MLS to be announced during MLS cup week?

I have recently came across info suggesting that it is more then probable that Montreal will be announced as the 19th team in Major League Soccer during MLS cup week.


Update: Martin Smith of www.ruefrontenac.com has been quoted as saying on a CKAC radio show that 2011 seems much more probable in the current situation. He follows daily club affairs very closely so it might be an indication of things to come.

I would also guess that Joey is feeling quite a bit more comfortable skipping the expansion draft now then he was back in July. I could easily see them bringing 7-8 players from their current squad up with them to MLS.

More info to follow...