TURNING POINT FOR IMPACT
Saputo looks back on season and what lies ahead
When Michael Farber was a sports columnist at the Montreal Gazette in 1993, among his many memorable observations was: “Kids play (soccer) until they are old enough to drive. After they get their licences, the last place they think of driving to is a soccer field.”
That was the same year the Impact was founded, kicking off their inaugural season in the American Professional Soccer League with Joey Saputo as president, Pino Asaro as GM and Eddie Firmani as coach. The Impact finished in last place that season, losing their final game 2-0 to the Colorado Foxes in front of 3,019 rain-soaked fans at Claude Robillard Stadium.
Times have changed since then in Montreal with the Expos long gone and the Impact surpassing the Alouettes as the No. 2 sports franchise behind the Canadiens after coming within one game of advancing to the MLS Cup this season in only their fifth year in the league.
The Impact attracted a sellout crowd of 61,004 to Olympic Stadium for a playoff game against Toronto FC with just over a million more watching on TV.
Four busloads of Impact fans travelled to Toronto for Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final in front of a sellout crowd of 36,000 at BMO Field with a record 1.4 million watching on TV.
The Canadiens will always be No. 1 in Montreal, but the Impact has the potential for much more growth with young fans who not only played soccer but have grown up with the ability to watch English Premier League and other international games regularly on TV. Saputo Stadium has become a fun place to be for an Impact game, whether you’re a big soccer fan or not, and there are always plenty of young faces in the crowd. Many of them would have driven there.
On Friday, Saputo and technical director Adam Braz met with the media to discuss the MLS season that was and also look to the future. Saputo called this year a turning point for the franchise.
“For the first time since our inception, the city, the province and the country fully lived and experienced its very own brand of soccer with tremendous passion and pride,” Saputo said. “During the playoffs, the energy and spirit of international soccer swept the province, but in a new framework. This was not the World Cup, the Champions League, but rather a timeless rivalry in a new arena. A relatively young sport in North America showing clear signs of maturity and popularity.”
Saputo noted that Impact games can be seen on TV in 140 countries, including the United Kingdom, Italy, Africa, Spain, Brazil and France, and are broadcast in 90 languages, adding no other Montreal team has that kind of international exposure.
“We are now an international ambassador for the city, province and country,” Saputo said.
“Our soccer may be local, but our impact is global.”
The Impact’s first five years in MLS have been hugely successful, with two Canadian championships, a trip to the final of the CONCACAF Champions League and making the league playoffs three times. By comparison, Toronto FC — which entered MLS in 2007 — won its first-ever playoff game this year.
But Toronto FC is on the verge of becoming the first Canadian club to win the MLS Cup, facing the Seattle Sounders in the championship game Saturday at BMO Field (8 p.m., TSN, RDS).
The Montreal-Toronto soccer rivalry will only get stronger after this season, but the two teams aren’t competing on a level financial field, with Toronto having a league-high payroll of US$21.798 million this season, while the Impact ranked ninth at $6.741 million.
The Impact already has nine of the starting 11 players from this year’s playoff run under contract for next season and Braz is negotiating with the other two — captain Patrice Bernier and Dominic Oduro. There is also room for a new designated player following the departure of Didier Drogba, but don’t expect Saputo to pay anything near what Toronto FC’s is paying Sebastian Giovinco (US$7.115 million), Michael Bradley ($6.5 million) and Jozy Altidore ($4.8 million).
“I really don’t think that you need to spend that type of money,” Saputo said. “We don’t have the means to do it, we don’t have the market to do it. We have to be intelligent in the way we spend in order to be competitive but, at the same time, be fiscally responsible in the way we operate.”
So far they’ve done a great job and it won’t be long until the Impact is back in full operation. Training camp for the 2017 MLS season begins next month.
“The best part of it is that we only have to wait six weeks before it starts all over again,” Saputo said.