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Samuel Piette


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Didn't watch the game but according to whoscored he was the 3rd best player on the pitch with a rating of 7.7 behind goalsocrers Dzemalli and Piatti

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4 hours ago, canta15 said:

Didn't watch the game but according to whoscored he was the 3rd best player on the pitch with a rating of 7.7 behind goalsocrers Dzemalli and Piatti

I would agree with him being rated 3rd best player. Other than one rash move that got him yellow carded a very strong outing that continued his level of play from the Gold Cup. Even made a few nice long passes which we are less accustomed to see from him.

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I have high expectations but for Piette. Still, I was expecting maybe a shaky/nervous start... but he was awesome from the get go, dominant on the field even. Like Grizzly said, he even threw in some nice long passes, and also helped in the clean sheet by blocking a shot (or 2?) from inside the box. He looked even better than he did vs HON and CRC, imo.

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45 minutes ago, Shakmur said:

I have high expectations but for Piette. Still, I was expecting maybe a shaky/nervous start... but he was awesome from the get go, dominant on the field even. Like Grizzly said, he even threw in some nice long passes, and also helped in the clean sheet by blocking a shot (or 2?) from inside the box. He looked even better than he did vs HON and CRC, imo.

Yeah...he has really grown into that role of a defensive mid player.  Tackles, passing, commanding the backline...you name it...

You could argue of all the prospects/young Canadians his development has accelerated the most into a genuine player. 

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58 minutes ago, mpg_29 said:

Yeah...he has really grown into that role of a defensive mid player.  Tackles, passing, commanding the backline...you name it...

You could argue of all the prospects/young Canadians his development has accelerated the most into a genuine player. 

That, or many of us fans simply underrated him for years. He has an impressive amount of caps for his age.

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12 minutes ago, shermanator said:

 

He was utilized heavily under Floro. However he was mostly used in a more advanced midfield role, where he struggled. When he was used in the destroyer role he flourished.

I should've said "wasn't utilized properly". My bad. 

And also, I guess having Atiba, De Guzman and Johnson ahead of him didn't help his chances of playing at CDM for Floro.

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2 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Funny how happy all you Impact fans are to see your team so marvellously enhanced by a Spanish third division journeyman. Just think: there are hundreds more where he came from.

I knew you would pop that into the discussion

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Excellent news for Montréal! Piette really had a good game, and his partnership with Bernier and Jackson-Hamel in the Gold Cup should bear fruit for the team during the latter third of this MLS season. 

Unfortunately, Bernier is due to retire soon, which means Piette will be in need of a longer term partner at CDM. 

En tout cas, pour le moment tout va bien.   

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https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/08/13/armchair-analyst-obey-law-gravity-more-week-23

Moment's Notice

Samuel Piette was with Canada at the Gold Cup last month and he was very good. He signed with Montreal last week and expectations were fairly high. He played his first MLS game this weekend, and his performance exceeded most reasonable hopes.

Piette, who was deployed as a defensive midfielder, won't be getting the headlines this week as it was the DPs – Blerim Dzemaili and the great Ignacio Piatti, fit at last – who got the goals in a 3-0 Montreal win that could prove to be a crucial in the playoff hunt. It bumped the Impact up to seventh place on 30 points, five points back of both Atlanta United and Columbus, but with three games in hand on Crew SC.

At the same time, it feels like a decisive loss for Philly, who don't seem to have a realistic path to the playoffs at this point. Jim Curtin was candid about his team's situation as they dropped to 10th in the East on points per game.

“Now we have to chase,” Curtin said. “We no longer now control our own destiny. We’re going to need help and we’re going to need to do some things on the road that we haven’t done this year."

Piette was perhaps the biggest reason why. Montreal have struggled all season to deny service up the gut to opposing forwards, forcing their central defense into a season-long series of risky, high-leverage tackles. You can get away with this for a game or even for a good month, but over the course of an entire season probabilities tend to shift away from gambles and toward containment.

And so Piette contained the Union attack by choking off service to center forward C.J. Sapong, the nexus for anything good that Philly attempt to do. Below is a network passing graphic for the Union made using Opta data:

Union%20passing%20graphic%20vs.%20Montre

The circles represent the location of the corresponding player's aggregate touch, and the thickness of the lines connecting them represents the volume of passes exchanged. Sapong is No. 17, and this is very much what a striker "stranded out on an island" looks like. He completed only seven passes all game, and three of them were kick-offs after Impact goals. He received only one pass all game from his wingers, and none from his No. 10.

Montreal, with Piette as the lynchpin, strangled Sapong, and thus strangled the entire Union attack.

This wasn't all Piette's doing, of course. Mauro Biello had a good gameplan and the Laurent Ciman/Victor Cabrera pairing in the middle of the backline had, probably, their best game of the season. But I do believe all three of those things are linked, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Piette looked so able for Canada last month, and then picked up where he left off once he switched red for blue.

Neither is his club and country teammate, Patrice Bernier.

"He came in and there's a lot of hype and a lot of pressure," is how Bernier put it to Philly.com's Jonathan Tannenwald. "But I'm not surprised, because he's played well for the national team and he's the type of profile that we needed. One of those players like Michael Bradley, Ozzie Alonso, Diego Chara [who sits] in front of the defense, covers a lot. He broke up a lot of plays."

It's way too early to expect Piette to edge into that sort of company, and a one-game sample isn't enough to say that he's fixed all the things that have been ailing the Impact. But at the same time, it didn't take long for him to make his presence felt, and the Impact – who have seven home games left, and plenty of time to make up the requisite points needed to jump above the playoff line – have much more realistic postseason hopes because of it.

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6 hours ago, Unnamed Trialist said:

Funny how happy all you Impact fans are to see your team so marvellously enhanced by a Spanish third division journeyman. Just think: there are hundreds more where he came from.

IMO this is an important post, albeit tongue in cheek. There are plenty of posts dismissing our players because of the current level of play they are at, but not factoring either the actual talent or potential of said player. "XYZ player struggles on MLS team, therefore must really be NASL/USL level. XYZ player struggled in a match for Canada, therefore should play at XYZ lower division."

I have been a booster of Piette since the U17 team as I had a few sources in the team who did, and continued, to say good things about his mentality. He got minutes for the last few years, which was critical IMO, and this year would have been the crossroads to step up the level of competition. I know it is only one game, so I'm not going to celebrate quite yet, but this is encouraging. T

This should flag players like Manjrekar James, or even Manny Aparicio, along with Didic and Gonzalez, who are getting minutes at a young age and might just need an opportunity in a more visible league for us to appreciate them more.

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4 hours ago, ChrisinOrleans said:

Excellent news for Montréal! Piette really had a good game, and his partnership with Bernier and Jackson-Hamel in the Gold Cup should bear fruit for the team during the latter third of this MLS season. 

Unfortunately, Bernier is due to retire soon, which means Piette will be in need of a longer term partner at CDM. 

En tout cas, pour le moment tout va bien.   

Shamit Shome. Plays very similarly to Bernier. Of course Montreal hasn't done anything with him all year. He is creative, and a very solid passer. Give him a year or two to develop and he should be their guy. Of course he needs to play to develop....

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4 hours ago, BenFisk'sBiggestFan said:

Shamit Shome. Plays very similarly to Bernier. Of course Montreal hasn't done anything with him all year. He is creative, and a very solid passer. Give him a year or two to develop and he should be their guy. Of course he needs to play to develop....

Matt Doyle said Shome was passed over by so many teams in the draft because few teams thought he had the athletic ability and foot speed to play above NASL/USL level. If he becomes a MLS player great, but I think McKendry and Teibert are more likely partners for the 2022 cycle as of yet. 

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Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Just 2 months ago we were hearing from many here that where Piette played was garbage and he had to move up to improve at all as a player. I disagreed, since he had a good season, but he was by no means breaking down doors. There are plenty more like him at that level.

I take it like this: Either.... 

-Spanish third tier is a lot better than most realize. 

-MLS is a lot worse overall than most realize, if a third tier player can shine.

-Piette miraculously improved dramatically since the season ended in Spain. 

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