Jesse Marsch was always an odd choice to be the first MLS coach of the Montreal Impact. A pretty much unilingual American who had a long if unspectacular playing career as a grunt. To use an analogy Montrealers would be familiar with Marsch was a third liner on the Leafs. Montreal is a first line kind of town. Well, at least it likes to think of itself that way.
It’s also, of course, a French town with a vibrant (if a little nuts) French language media. That the Impact went with a guy that speaks limited French was an unexpected move and one that might hurt them down the road. At the press conference announcing the Impact’s expansion draft picks there were just two questions asked by reporters, both in English.
Although no (sane) sports fan would want to see the same reaction to Marsch as we saw with the promotion of unilingual Randy Cunneyworth to the head job with the Montreal Canadiens, the same issues that made that appointment problematic apply with the Impact. Language is a sensitive issue in Quebec.
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So far the current fans of the Impact -- predominantly Francophones, it must be said – have not complained. The Impact faithful from D2 are just happy to have a team, I suspect. To their credit they are only interested in Marsch’s ability to win soccer games and are not preoccupied with whether he calls it a four-four-two or a quatre-quatre-deux.
Of course the old fans loyalty is not at issue – finding new fans to fill an expanded Saputo Stadium is. To win the hearts of Montrealers, the Impact will need to do a good job of not only putting a competitive product of the field, but of also reflecting the community it exists in.
Is Marsch aware that he not only must manage a football team but also be a social anthropologist? Based on the evidence so far, I suspect not. On the Pitch Invasion podcast today he talked about his philosophy of building the Impact:
I think some mistakes that some expansion teams have made is that they have undervalued MLS talent and they undervalued the MLS experience of what it’s like to play in this league, the travel, the competitions, the altitude, the heat...they’ve tried to go outside the league and bring in different talent that has taken time to adjust and sometimes has never been able to adjust..when I looked at the expansion draft I wanted to use it to not only get good players that were on that list but to also leverage it to maybe use it to get a guy like how we got Davy Arnaud.
It’s pretty basic stuff, but it speaks to an approach that has been pretty clear to anyone paying attention to the players he’s brought in. Marsch favours workmanlike MLS lifers. Grunts. Plumbers. Mostly college grads. He’s building a team that would brilliantly reflect Toronto. In black and white. The 2012 Montreal Impact are the 1957 Toronto Maple Leafs.
With just Patrice Bernier to carry the fleur de lis, there isn’t a lot of local character there for a reluctant Quebecor to grab hold of. Maybe it won’t matter, but history tells us that it very well might. The Impact academy had better start cranking out young French-Canadian talent quickly.
Winning is said to cure all, of course. On that front it’s hard to take issue with what Marsch is doing. There is little doubt that an approach that favours veteran MLSers over risky foreign signings will produce a more competitive team out of the gate (example: 2011 Portland Timbers vs 2011 Vancouver Whitecaps – the former took Marsch’s approach, the latter did not). It seems likely that the Impact will be fairly close to the final playoff position.
Will that be enough to win over the complicated Montreal sports market?
I don’t think anyone can know yet.