When a player comes to MLS from Europe or South America, we often hear about the cultural adjustments they have to make in order to best adapt to their new league.
Simply integrating into a new club, getting to know new teammates and impressing a new coaching staff isn’t enough. To really excel in MLS, the new arrival must also get used to the rhythm of life in North America.
We don’t usually think about that sort of cultural adjustment when American and Canadian players move through the league. But we probably should, at least for one team.
MLS players who move to the Montreal Impact face a cultural adjustment of their own. Many don’t know a word of French before moving to Quebec, something that can be a bit of an inconvenience in a majority French-speaking city.
Folks can certainly get by in Montreal without knowing much French, but the Impact do their best to make sure their Anglophone players have the resources to learn the language if they’d like, offering classes twice a week for players and their families at the club’s facility.
Three new Impact players – Americans Harry Shipp and Kyle Fisher and Ontario-native Kyle Bekker, who apparently doesn’t remember much from his elementary school French lessons – are taking the classes this year. The Impact’s video team followed them to one of their more recent classes, sitting down with the trio as they worked their way through a French lesson. Check it out above.
