Should the Montreal Impact go after Samuel Piette?

Since the beginning of the 2017 Gold Cup, there’s only one player that everyone wants to see in the Montreal Impact jersey and that is Samuel Piette. The 22-year-old defensive midfielder has impressed everyone with his performance with Canadian men national team, especially since the nomination of Octavio Zambrano as coach. With Piette as the number 6 role, Canada achieved to get a clean sheet against Honduras, just gave 1 goal to the powerful Costa Rica and keep 1 goal/match start, while showing a really interesting performance with the possession.

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Piette is currently playing in the 3rd division in Spain and him coming over to the MLS would actually be an upgrade in play for Samuel.

Furthermore, Piette got more interceptions and complete passes than anyone during the group stage games from Canada. Of course, those statistics should be enough to convince everyone to bring him to Montreal but, in my opinion, there is more. A lot more. First of all, he’s young. While Marco Donnadel’s contract ends soon, The Montreal Impact will be looking for another first plan defensive midfielder and Bernardello hasn’t proved that he’s able to be this man.

A contrary, Piette did. He’s better at controlling the game by his passing and ball protecting skills, showed that he can protect the defensive line and broke the other teams ‘attacks. So, Montreal would have a fantastic central midfielder and he is only 22 years old.

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He could be one of the team’s pillar defensive midfielders for the next years to come, even the next captain! Who knows? But, Piette is also a Quebecer. All alone, this isn’t good enough for the Montreal Impact to sign him, but as we saw before, he’s a tremendous player, he has leadership, he’s young and, because he’s a Quebecer, he wouldn’t take an international spot.

Personally, I think Piette could be the next Patrice Bernier. An excellent player, but also an ambassador for the club. As we saw in the friendly against Curacao, he brought nearly 400 people to Saputo Stadium which was 6% of the total attendance of that game! Moreover, Piette wouldn’t be an expensive player. As we saw with Adrian Arregui’s loan earlier this season, the Impact is looking for his next defensive midfielder. I said it previously, Bernardello isn’t the solution. Arregui neither. But those guys are and were in Arregui’s case, paid close or more than $300,000/year. Piette wouldn’t be even close to that with a contract of 100-120K$/year. For a club like Montreal that doesn’t spend a lot of money, 200K$ is enormous!

Finacial Breakdown:

Bernardello’s and Arregui’s international spot were bought for GAM (60,000) in the case of Hernan and a second round picks in MLS SuperDraft for Adrian’s. These look like nothing, but 60K is close to Ballou tabla’s salary and a second round pick can be Michael Salazar. With Piette, Montreal wouldn’t need to spend money or MLS SuperDraft choices to get an international spot, because he doesn’t need one. He also doesn't become a free transfer until next year and knowing the Montreal Impact they won't spend a transfer fee for the player and rather wait to get him on a free transfer.

In conclusion, Piette is an excellent, young, Quebecer and with lots of potential defensive midfielder that would help Montreal Impact this season and probably for the next 5,6,7,8 years. He won't be the solution for the Montreal Impact but could defiantly be an upgrade in the CDM role and a great bench player.