Preseason Look: Montreal Impact

Last up for my Eastern Conference 2019 MLS preseason preview is the Montreal Impact. A team that comes in as the last team out of the MLS Cup 2018 Playoffs. Montreal has become a team of missing parts and outstanding performers. Ignacio Piatti is the type of player that will keep this team in any game. His talent is at the top of MLS.

What's unfortunate for the Impact this offseason is the right-hand side of the midfield. There's nothing there. I was struggling to fill out their starting eleven. Ken Krolicki and Jeisson Vargas don't appear to have enough to fill this critical hole.

Montreal is a tough sell for players with options, which I think leads to the uneven results we see from this team over the years. They seem to have the talent identification down. It's just getting them in and motivated.

		Player Ratings (avg)		TransferMarkt Value (000)
	Team	Starters	Bench	Starters	Bench
1	ATL	70.9	65.9	$ 52,497	$ 6,067
2	TFC	70.5	65.7	$ 25,027	$ 4,315
3	NYC	70.5	64.6	$ 16,303	$ 4,470
4	DCU	69.7	56.6	$ 21,934	$ 2,990
5	NYR	69.7	64.9	$ 20,192	$ 3,745
6	MTL	69.6	65.2	$ 13,410	$ 4,876
7	CLB	69.3	66.2	$ 24,671	$ 4,180
8	NER	68.7	64.5	$ 13,278	$ 5,115
9	PHI	68.2	56.5	$ 9,933	$ 5,529
10	CHI	67.8	63.7	$ 17,022	$ 3,955
11	FCC	67.5	64.7	$ 11,014	$ 4,383
12	ORL	67.2	62.2	$ 10,365	$ 3,309

Montreal's backline is pretty okay. At second glance, talent is all over this team. They just have to fix a couple spots in the midfield.

Rating	Name	Position	FM19	FIFA	WS
77	Ignacio Piatti	Left Winger	75	80	77
73	Saphir Taider	Central Midfield	73	76	70
72	Bacary Sagna	Right-Back	72	74	71
71	Samuel Piette	Defensive Midfield	71	71	69
71	Maximiliano Urruti	Centre-Forward	71	73	71
69	Víctor Cabrera	Centre-Back	69	68	71
68	Evan Bush	Goalkeeper	65	70	68
68	Zakaria Diallo	Centre-Back	71	68	63
67	Rudy Camacho	Centre-Back	67	68	65
67	Mike Azira	Defensive Midfield	64	70	67
67	Daniel Lovitz	Left-Back	66	67	69
67	Jukka Raitala	Left-Back	67	68	66
65	Jeisson Vargas	Left Winger	65	67	65
65	Quincy Amarikwa	Centre-Forward	67	65	65
65	Anthony Jackson-Hamel	Centre-Forward	69	65	63
63	Ken Krolicki	Right-Mid	62	63	63
63	Clément Diop	Goalkeeper	60	63	65
62	Harry Novillo	Left Winger	62	69	61
61	Michael Petrasso	Right-Back	61	61	63
61	Shamit Shome	Central Midfield	61	58	62
58	Thomas Meilleur-Giguere	Centre-Back	64	58
58	James Pantemis	Goalkeeper	59	58
55	Mathieu Choinière	Central Midfield	55	60
54	Jason Beaulieu	Goalkeeper	58	54
0	Daniel Kinumbe	Left-Back	51
0	Clement Bayiha	Right-Back	51
0	Amar Sejdic	Midfielder

A competitive team, this will be - but also middle of the pack, will they be.