MLS Expansion Draft 2011: Montreal Impact Make Several Big Moves

Listening back to different sound bites from Montreal Impact coach Jesse Marsch, you realize that he is a man of his word and is pretty much a straight shooter when it comes to talking about how he sees soccer. When talking about how he wants to build his team, he has said things that he’s looking for “players that can play at the next level,” and that he wants to “build from the back” and “build a strong nucleus.” This has been directly translated via the Impact’s expansion draft picks and post-draft transactions.

Competition is excellent within a team but Montreal has seen fit to include a learning and development aspect in the process.

It seems safe to say that the Impact are the first one to use “trolling” as a major part of their plan. Sure, there are plenty of solid picks in that group, but it’s hard not to think that Jesse Marsch and Co. were at least making some attempt to get under the skin of their new rivals.

To be clear, I don’t blame the Impact for taking this tack. MLS needs more vitriol and if a team owned by Joey Saputo is going to stir the pot, I’m all for it.

For the most part, they seem to fall into one of two camps: Those that think the Dynamo messed up by not protecting Ching and those who now hate Impact coach Jesse Marsch. Dynamo Theory tried to find a balance in assessing where this all goes from here on out:

As someone without a dog in this fight, I’ll say that I don’t have much pity for the Dynamo here. Essentially, they were hoping to protect 12 players, while everyone else was limited to 11. If it was so important to make sure Ching got to finish his career in Houston, all they had to do was protect him. Instead they tried to have their cake (protect 11 players they must have figured were in danger of getting picked) and eating it too (keeping Ching).