MONTREAL – It’s that time of the year again. The time when there’s speculation around Ignacio Piatti leaving Montreal.
Last fall, Piatti was linked to a short-term loan to his old team, Copa Libertadores winners San Lorenzo, for the Club World Cup. This summer, Piatti himself said that Mexican and Malaysian clubs had approached him. These days, on the back of Piatti’s travels to Argentina for family reasons, rumors are swirling about him returning to San Lorenzo and playing the Libertadores again – with Didier Drogba in his suitcase, of course.
It was thus only natural that when Piatti’s turn came at the Impact’s postseason press conference last Friday, the first question revolved around his future. Piatti answered the way that Montreal Impact supporters wanted him to.
“It is true that, in my personal life, this wasn’t a good year,” Piatti said. “My grandpa died. My dad’s doing better [after falling ill]. But I have a contract with Montreal. I’m very well here. I’m very happy here. I like my home and everything. Next year, I’ll be here.”
Added technical director Adam Braz: “Nacho is a great player for us and for the league. … But in the end, he’s one of our players. He’s under contract. We haven’t received any offers for him. He wants to be back. Everything’s fine.”
Minutes before he gave his answer, Piatti had received the Giuseppe Saputo trophy as Impact MVP for the 2015 season. Perhaps there was, as in Laurent Ciman’s case, a feeling that there is so much more to come in Montreal.
Regrets? Piatti has had a few.
“After the [CONCACAF Champions League] Final against Club América, I didn’t sleep,” Piatti said. “It was the same thing after [the Eastern Conference Semifinals against] Columbus. In the last three minutes, I could have scored, but I didn’t, again. It’s tough. But it’s over. We have to think about next year.”
On the other hand, some of Piatti’s greatest moments this year came in the biggest games. He scored two goals and assisted two more in the CCL Championship Round. Sometimes perceived as struggling on the road in the first half of the season, he tallied twice in a 3-2 win at New York City on August 1 and clinched the Impact’s Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs spot with a ludicrous goal away at New England on October 17.
But Piatti’s exceptional goal-and-assist performance in the 3-0 win over Toronto FC in the Knockout Round could only have made him more disappointed with his outing in the East Semifinal return leg. Similarly, in the second leg of a continental final, getting stoned on a breakaway hurts more when you’ve set up the go-ahead goal minutes earlier.
Still, Piatti sees the season in a positive light. Winning the Team MVP title means he must have done something good. So has the team, Piatti said, praising his teammates and backing them all as potential winners of the award as well.
It is true that Montreal needed everyone to chip in with such a busy year. But it brought great memories to them all.
“We played the CONCACAF Champions League in Mexico, and then we played MLS games,” Piatti said. “You don’t have much time to realize [what’s happening] or to get ready for the following games. But it was a very good year. We played the CONCACAF Final, the Canadian Championship Final, an [Eastern Conference] Semifinal in MLS. It was my first full year here, and I’m really happy with the team, with my teammates, with everything this season.”
The most important moment of this season, to Piatti, remains the CCL Final. Making it to the Eastern Conference Semifinals was also a fine accomplishment, he said.
“But playing against Toronto and going through [to the next round] while they go home, that was very good as well,” Piatti said.
No room for doubt: Ignacio Piatti has become a Montrealer.