Weekly Bites #5: Miami FC marketing and 'Tous au stade...'?

Every Friday/Saturday, I’ll be posting a quick recap of the previous week’s mentions of the squad and anything else Impact related. Some of you actually have to work, rather than crawl the interwebs looking for the faintest mention of Marco Donadel’s Charlie-Brown-like bad luck, or Laurent Ciman’s always-rumored-but-never-witnessed happy face. So, I do it for you.

So, I was on the bus the other day, and this guy points to me and is like "Hey man, Go Impact". And then I says, I says "Yea man, rock on". And then he was like "I love Calum Mallace", and then I says "Yea, whatever man". And then he says, he says "He's so much better than Bekker", and then got off the bus.

Here they are, your Weekly Bites:

• Our attack last week against the Seattle Sounders truly faltered, and we looked as if we carried whatever demons we contracted in Dallas all the way to Washington state. Shutout once again, the Impact couldn't stop a set piece, or take one. Bekker looked good though, amirite? [MRS] [MRS] [MLS] [CBC] [Guardian] [TSN]

• Set pieces. We can't stress this enough. It's like high jumping for the Impact. It's harder to jump from a standing position, but easier while running, right? Whatever, put the little white ball into the back of the big net. Our defensive coverage on set pieces has been horrendous, and Dempsey should never have gotten a head to the ball on Saturday night. And if I see another set piece from within 40 yards played short, I'm going to lose my mind. It's been 5 years since we've had any set piece skill. And Lloyd Barker...*swoon* [Gazette] [RDS] [JdeM] [MRS]

• Saturday the Montreal Impact face the Columbus Crew at home. Here's all the pregame reading you'll need. We'll be hosting the Crew, who eliminated the Impact in the playoffs last year, in the Big O. I described the Olympic Stadium the other day as "The Big O is where I go when I want to feel like I am in a post-apocalyptic world, where only the people who have survived live within it's walls. We gather every weekend to watch the most skilled amongst us play a sport on fake synthetic grass, as all plants are now dead. We can't leave due to the nuclear fallout, and we get by on old hotdogs and terrible popcorn. But there's beer...at least we have ridiculously expensive beer..." [MLS] [MLSGB] [MRS] [RDS] [WFP]

• On another note, though similar: Anyone notice that the Impact front office hasn't been saying much this week about attendance? Weird, as each week before a home game so far, 'attendance' was the talking point of the week. Well, it's probably cause they'd have to state how many tickets were sold for Saturday's match, which is looking not much over 15k, if they're lucky. Get out there and grab those tickets guys. Come for the post-apocalyptic soccer environment, stay for the petrified hot dogs! [Impact]

• Will Didier Drogba ever come back... :'( [RDS]

• Lots of media talking about Mathieu Flamini, the hard working Arsenal midfielder, and his interest in a transfer to an MLS side. He's French, so he MUST be looking at the Impact, right? Who knows. But if the boys in blue are able to lasso a midfielder of his calibre, I would go so far as saying that our midfield woes would potentially evaporate before our eyes. He's the messiah. He must be coming to Montreal. Prepare your chants, posters, and book an Uber to the airport gents. Or wait, he was really close with Beckham at AC Milan, and he could just as easily sign a one year extension with Arsenal, or any other club for that matter, and then move to the new Beckham residence in Florida. Who wouldn't want to do that? Come on Mathieu...we've got Drogba!...sometimes...Say, how do you like turf!? [MRS] [ShortFuse] [SportsMole] [HITC] [Express] [MLS] [TalkSport]

• Our great C. Ralph put a great argument together for why the Voyageurs Cup and CCL is a really, really important thing for the Impact. [MRS]

• Some rumours at midweek about Nick de Santis taking a trip to Bologna, potentially taking a job in their front office. We thought it was cause he was running away from Soumare...but turns out nothing is happening at all. Ah, soccer rumours. TVA started it, then just a few hours late, rescinded the rumour. [TVA] [TVA]

• NASL side Miami FC decided to take a page from 1993 and market their team through what Miami is known for: hot university girls. No wonder no one takes our league seriously. We at MRS embrace the fact that women are some of the biggest fans of the game, no need to be demeaning. Why don't women's sports teams have male cheerleaders? Maybe I'm being demeaning by assuming they aren't fans...? I'm confused guys, help me out here. [NorthernPitch]

• Looks like we could have a couple of surprises coming this weekend. Nicolas Martineau has tweeted about an admittedly rare interaction between Joey Saputo (double *swoon*) and Nacho Piatti, as well as some radical changes to the starting XI. Hope Biello didn't have a conversation with Michel Therrien.

Le XI partant de samedi pourrait réserver quelques surprises. Biello joue pas mal avec son alignement à l'entraînement. #IMFC

— Nicolas A Martineau (@nikmartineauTVA) April 7, 2016

See you next week guys. Be sure to head out and get tickets for tomorrow's game, thousands of high quality seats still available.