MONTREAL – Take defenders Eric Miller and Maxim Tissot, midfielder Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé and forwards Anthony Jackson-Hamel and Jack McInerney.
All are under 23, and all started at least one game in September for the Montreal Impact.
With the eliminated Impact only playing spoilers in MLS, youngsters have been getting more starts. Montreal say they’re still looking to field the best possible team, starting this Sunday at Chicago (5 pm ET, MLS Live), but October might look like one big audition ahead of 2015.
“If they have the ability to play and they’re quality, they’re going to get chances to play,” head coach Frank Klopas told reporters earlier this week. “I’ve given a lot of the younger players opportunities to play. I believe in the younger players.”
Klopas added that Montreal’s USL PRO team would “go a long way” for youth development and the creation of quality depth, a good example of which would be – albeit at the ripe old age of 24 – midfielder Calum Mallace. With Patrice Bernier and Gorka Larrea out injured, Mallace started Montreal’s last five MLS games and scored his first league goal in a 2-1 loss at New England.
After experiments at right back in 2012 and a loan spell home in Minnesota in 2013, Mallace is showing in 2014 that he can be relied upon in 2015 and later, on the field and off.
“I’ve had quite an experience in three years, not playing, being loaned out,” Mallace said. “I’ve always wanted to help out younger guys, and so we’ll see next year with the guys we have, and I’ll just tell anyone to not give up, stick in there and keep working as a pro every day.”
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Montreal have backup in every position, but while there’s a mix of youth and experience in goal, at the back and in the middle, the three options Montreal have lined up in attack for 2015, with Marco Di Vaio likely to return home to Italy, are of the young generation: Jackson-Hamel, McInerney and 22-year-old Santiago Gonzalez, currently on loan at Danubio in Uruguay.
It is expected that Montreal will rotate Di Vaio and McInerney until the end of the season, and Montreal’s intention, when they acquired McInerney in April, was to exercize the option in his contract for next season.
“Obviously it’s big shoes to fill,” McInerney said of Di Vaio. “But I think that playing with him this year has taught me a lot. Hopefully I can carry some of the stuff that he’s brought here in Montreal into next year, especially just scoring goals and being consistent.”
