Impact to fête Bernier in final game of season
Fans will have opportunity to give him proper sendoff in meaningless match
The last game of an otherwise dismal season for the Montreal Impact will be all about Patrice Bernier.
The 38-year-old midfielder, a national team stalwart and perhaps the best player produced in Quebec, will play his final game Sunday (4 p.m., TSN5, TVA Sports CJAD 800 Radio) when the New England Revolution visit Saputo Stadium to close out the Major League Soccer regular season.
Neither the eighth-place Impact (11-16-6) nor the seventhplace Revolution (12-15-6) qualified for the playoffs, so there will be little else for fans to celebrate except the sendoff for the Brossard native, who will be fêted in a pre-match ceremony and make a goodbye lap of the field at the end, when his retirement becomes official.
“I decided to stop because I’m ready to stop, but at the same time I’m sad,” Bernier said this week. “It’s a young man’s game. “You can’t play forever. I’m happy I lived it. Not too many players have been able to play 18 years, who are born here, played abroad and were able to come back.”
Bernier, who is to become a coach in the club’s academy, has been a fan favourite since he returned to the Impact when the club joined Major League Soccer in 2012. He had started his pro career with the Impact in the defunct A-League in 2000 before heading off in 2003 to star for clubs in Norway, Germany and Denmark.
The prime years of his career were spent far from home, but he got to experience European soccer culture first hand. He played for Moss FK and Tromso in Norway, Kaiserslautern in Germany and he was named player of the year with the Nordsjaelland club in 2010 in Denmark, where he won two Danish Cups.