Misconduct | Who is your favorite player in the history of the Montreal Impact?

Sports journalists from The Press answer a question with pleasure.

Alexander Pratt

I only own one sports jersey with a name on the back. A match jersey worn by Nacho Piatti, bought at a charity auction, in his golden years here. As much in life as I don’t have easy partisanship, I adored Piatti. His dribbles, his feints, his accelerations, his hooks, his lasers fired in the middle of five opponents, he had everything to light up the Saputo stadium. What he had done, in August 2017, by taking the microphone on the field, after a night of two goals, to put pressure on Joey Saputo in order to obtain a new contract. An episode that sums up his time in Montreal well: surprising, spectacular and always entertaining.

Jean-Francois Teotonio

Patrick Bernier. I have the chance today to meet him and to speak to him quite regularly. But before being a journalist assigned to cover CF Montreal, even before being a journalist at all, I admired Patrice Bernier. For what he stood for. For his talent and prowess on the pitch. The Impact arrived in MLS around the same time I arrived in Montreal. My departure from my hometown of Gatineau thus coincided with Bernier’s return to the metropolis. I have a tangible memory of going to watch the first game on the Garber circuit at the Olympic Stadium with my friends from UQAM. From his superb goal against Toronto in the 2015 playoffs. I was there at Stade Saputo to see him hit his chest and the Impact logo in celebration. In the great moments as in the most unfortunate, Patrice Bernier remained upright. And he continued to represent the club and Quebec in the best possible way. You can’t ask for much more from a professional athlete.

Mathias Brunet

I obviously have a terrible conflict of interest in this file. I wrote Patrice Bernier’s biography a few years ago, a children’s book on him is due out this fall, and I came away with a wonderful, loyal, generous friend and an outstanding mentor for my son in his football adventure. So yes, capi would be the logical choice, but if I had to exclude him, for reasons of impartiality, I would opt for the largest size having worn this uniform: Didier Drogba. It was almost unimaginable to dream of seeing him in the Montreal Impact jersey before hearing the first rumors. He had calmed a civil war in Côte d’Ivoire through his exploits on the ground and his call for peace; he had been chosen the greatest player in the history of the prestigious Chelsea FC by his fans in 2012 and was considered one of the greatest African players of all time. I nervously texted my friend Mauro, then coach with the team, to reassure me about his arrival, but he obviously couldn’t spill the beans. I was in the stands for Drogba’s first start at Stade Saputo on September 6, 2015. This big international star had done it big with three goals. For once, because my job does not allow it when I cover sports activities, I demonstrated freely in the stands. As soon as the season ended, after just a few games, Drogba threatened to return to Chelsea. He finally came back, for the year 2016, but the magic was already starting to fade. No matter, it will have made us experience strong emotions for a few months!

Richard Labbe

Mauro Biello. I had the chance to cover the glory years of the Impact, when the club played at the Molson Centre, in an arena, the way soccer should be played, and the games ended 15-11, like the games of soccer should end. I remember two guys above all: Mauro Biello, because he collected more points per game than Saku Koivu, and the sympathetic coach Paul Kitson. Biello was the locomotive of the club and also the player who spoke to the media, without ever slipping away, match after match. He is therefore my choice, with a special mention to Kitson, who had organized a match between the media and some former players, probably to laugh at us. It ended with a colleague lying on the mat with a torn knee.

Simon Drouin

Evan Bush may not be my favorite — I’d rather be the Mauro Biello type — but the goalkeeper gave me one of the finest sporting moments in Montreal in 2019. In a game against Vancouver, the American stopped not one, but two consecutive penalty shots against Yordy Reina, plunging Stade Saputo into euphoria. The first pitch was retaken for an irregularity that I did not understand. The next day, on my way back from a bike ride, I stopped to discuss it with someone who knows his soccer, my cousin Alex Surprenant, a former Impact defender and now a hatter. ‘exception. He didn’t understand either, but was as impressed as me by Bush’s two dives, which allowed the Impact to come back from behind to win. Talk, talk, talk, talk, you don’t see Alex recognizing Bush coming out of a restaurant on the other side of Amherst Street (the late Agrikol, for the curious)… As I I was leaving, I stopped to congratulate the guard who got into his car. A nice moment of partisanship that rarely happens for a sports journalist. My cousin, he continues to make some really nice hats with his blonde Mélodie, at Fumile in Frelighsburg. He is always ready to talk soccer.

Nicholas Richard

Despite the bewildering number of candidates, I decided to set my sights on Evan Bush. A pillar in the history of the club, just like Biello, Bernier and Camara. Guardians rarely receive due credit. In Bush’s case, he was not only one of the best goalkeepers in MLS at its peak, but he was also one of the foreign players to have most embraced Quebec culture during his 10 years at Montreal. Between 2011 and 2020, Bush was one of the centerpieces of the Impact and CF Montreal. He learned French and sent his children to French schools. Few goalies, all leagues combined, have had such a sincere involvement in the Montreal community in the last 10 or 15 years. Bush, by his vision, his confidence in front of the cage, his positivism, his leadership and his innate talent for blocking penalties have marked the history of the club, which makes him a must for the exercise of the day.

Jean-Francois Tremblay

I have already spoken about it, my opinion has not changed, but Nick De Santis deserves all the honors at CF Montreal. He did it all. Star player, face of the club in the media, coach, manager. He contributed to the arrival of some of the most famous players in the history of the team, such as Ignacio Piatti, Laurent Ciman, Didier Drogba. He gave titles to the club, he filled seats for the team, he answered questions from the media for decades, always with the fire that he was known for. Of course, not everything is perfect, especially his time as sporting director, but try to find someone who has given his heart to the blue and black logo. As a journalist, I had a love-hate relationship with Nick De Santis, but always with respect and passion for our two professions. His absence from the CF Montreal Wall of Fame is an unforgivable oversight that will need to be fixed sooner rather than later.