PRESS RELEASE
MONTREAL – The Montreal Impact FC announced Wednesday the acquisition of a Canadian Soccer League (CSL) franchise and the creation of the Montreal Impact Academy, which will become the Montreal club’s reserve team. The new franchise will evolve in the CSL as of the 2010 season and will have its home at Saputo Stadium.This represents the first step in the creation of a development program within the club. The main objective of the Academy will be the development of Quebec players aged 17 to 21 within the club’s professional environment.
“We are taking today a further step towards the development of young players within our organization,” declared Joey Saputo, President of the Montreal Impact and Saputo Stadium. “We are taking full control of our reserve team to favour the growth of our local talent. By mixing with the first team players and by playing on the same field, the Impact will offer to its young players the best possible conditions to enhance their training experience. I wish to thank the community and the City of Trois-Rivières for their support in the last years.”
The Montreal club will manage the Academy’s technical, financial and operations-related activities. The Impact has moreover announced the nomination of Philippe Eullaffroy as head coach of the reserve team. He becomes the first director of player development to be hired full-time by the club. Eullaffroy will be assisted by Oliver Brett.
In 2009, in his first season as head coach of the Attak, Phillipe Eullaffroy led the team to the regular season championship, as well as to the first playoff championship in club history, October 25, 2009, versus the Serbian Eagles.
“Philippe demonstrated last year that he can work with a group of young players and that he is able to successfully develop them, as much on an individual basis than within a club’s mentality,” declared Impact technical director Nick De Santis. “He has gained a lot of experience, having notably worked at the training centers of Troyes and Reims.”
The 2010 season calendar in the CSL will be unveiled shortly. The cost to attend the Academy’s matches at Saputo Stadium will be of only $2.
AGOURRAM, BADESCU AND MAYARD UNTIL 2011
The Impact also announced that it had come to terms with three players from its organization. Forward Reda Agourram and goalkeeper Andrei Badescu signed two-year deals, while midfielder Pierre-Rudolph Mayard obtained a contract extension until the 2011 season. All contracts are pending USSF approval.
Agourram, a 19-year-old Montrealer of Moroccan origin, was the top scorer of the Canadian Soccer League last season, scoring 13 goals with the Impact’s reserve team in 19 matches (14 starts) and 1,356 minutes of play. He was selected Rookie of the Year, both with the Attak and in the league at the end of the 2009 season. He was invited at the Impact’s training camp January 25, 2010, and joined the team during its pre-season tour in Portugal in mid-February. Agourram took part in all three exhibition games of the team and scored a goal against Freamunde and Celta de Vigo. He also wears the colours of the U-23 Canadian National Team.
Badescu, a 25-year-old Romanian goalkeeper, was in 2009 the first goalkeeper of the reserve team and was the third goalkeeper of the Impact. With the Attak, Badescu tallied 13 wins in 16 matches and posted a 0,95 Goals Allowed Average. He evolved with various second, third and fourth division clubs in Romania, from 2000 to 2007.
Mayard, a 22-year-old Quebec midfielder, played his rookie season with the Impact last year. In 2009, he played eight matches, of which six as a starter, for a total of 478 minutes, tallying one goal and one assist for a total of three points. He is a product of the club’s reserve team who had finished the 2008 season as the top scorer of the Attak. Mayard has been loaned to the Charleston Battery, a USL Second Division club, for a 5-month period from March 10 to August 13, 2010.
“These are three young players from our club, so it’s very positive,” mentioned Nick De Santis. “These three players have the potential to play in 2010. They will need to keep up the work and show consistency during training.”
Nice! Hopefully it won’t be hamstrung when they join MLS. Vancouver has had issues with that.
I thought the Trois-Rivieres Attak was the reserve team for the Impact?
Yeah, count me confused along with footyfan22.
I know TRA wasn’t necessarily run as an academy but there were some young players to come through there.
This doesn’t sound really too different. It all depends how far they take their academy.
Since it seems to be considered a lock that Mtl will be MLS soon I can’t imagine they’d be starting this process now unless they expect some allowances from the league regarding academies. I sure hope there are. Save our national team Van and Mtl!
Okay, here’s what five minutes of thought on the academy issue got me.
Teams should be encouraged to set up academies, but let’s be realistic – MLS is never going to get away from an amateur draft structure, simply because of familiarity issues, and the single-entity structure has to come into play sooner or later when figuring this out. Plus, let’s face it – the draft does provide a more equitable distribution of talent.
So, how about this – a team can sign two products from its academy to MLS contracts per year. All additional players that wish to turn pro are pooled as part of the usual MLS draft process – whether it be generation Addidas or a new contract structure under the new CBA – and they are then included in the draft.
[This could be modified to 'carry forward' one or both the exemptions if there aren't any players deemed worthy of being signed that year for whatever reason.]
Now, the question is what motivation teams have to expose players to the draft. The reward for producing players which are drafted is that each team that produces a a player receives additional draft choices in the subsequent years’ draft. So if Vancouver produces a player that is picked by Seattle in the 2nd round, they would receive an additional pick at the following years’ draft.
[I say following year because you can then play around more with the picks, as opposed to having a couple minutes' notice if the last pick of the prior round is one of your academy players is taken and the compensatory pick is given in the same year].
Maybe you even work in a bonus if one of your academy players is a ‘lottery’ selection – EG, a first-round draft pick of a non-playoff team.
The draft, it would be reduced to three rounds from four, just to avoid it becoming bloated.
- So, this will encourage the development of younger players by giving teams tangible rewards for the development of those players.
- The MLS doesn’t spend any additional money this way.
- Even if a team prefers NCAA players, this encourages them to develop younger players, and they then turn around and use the extra picks on college talent the subsequent years.
- If a successful team gets the compensatory picks, they can use them as trade fodder.
Now, tell me why this wouldn’t work [... Joe]
Just realised that I didn’t make it clear – the ‘compensatory’ pick would be in the same round the player was taken. So if a Vancouver academy product was taken in the 2nd round of the 2012 draft, they would receive a pick at the tail end of the 2013 draft 2nd round.
Stephen said: “So, how about this – a team can sign two products from its academy to MLS contracts per year. All additional players that wish to turn pro are pooled as part of the usual MLS draft process – whether it be generation Addidas or a new contract structure under the new CBA – and they are then included in the draft.”
This is what happens now.