MONTREAL – The Impact’s recent acquisitions aren’t the defining factor in getting some results over the last few weeks, but they could be if the Impact is to maintain that form into both a race to the Playoffs and a CONCACAF Champions League run.
Having brought in Issey Nakajima-Farran and Futty Danso in the last three-and-a-half weeks, Montreal had all the looks of a team wanting more options for CCL when they signed Mechack Jérôme after a one-week trial. According to head coach Frank Klopas, though, Montreal “needed more depth throughout the year anyway.”
“Issey is a very good player, you’ve seen that, his ability in the final third and his work rate. With the other guys, we just needed a little bit more depth in certain spots and some different characteristics, which I think they’ll bring,” Klopas told reporters on Monday. “It does help with the reserve matches and now qualifying for the CONCACAF [Champions League], the amount of travel you have to do here.”
Nakajima-Farran, Futty and Jérôme signed with Montreal in time to clock up some 5,000 additional miles this summer. Joining them in Group 3 of the CCL are New York Red Bulls, a familiar foe, and El Salvador’s C.D. FAS, a club that Klopas knows a little.
While FAS will mostly ring bells among the Houston fanbase, whose Dynamo knocked FAS out at the group stage in the 2012-13 edition, Chicago Fire supporters will recall that former head coach Carlos De Los Cobos, whose technical director was Klopas, managed FAS and El Salvador’s national team.
“It’s probably the best team there,” Klopas said of FAS. “It’s never an easy task when you go away in places like that to play. But you’ve got to be excited. New York, we know, but it’s also great for the club, going out there, the exposure you’re going to get and the experience with some of the guys.”
