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...