Youthful Impact side beats Fiorentina’s reserves

The Montreal Impact continued its postseason tour of Italy with a 4-1 win over Fiorentina’s reserve side.

In the team’s first Italy-tour match, a 1-0 loss to Bologna, acting coach Mauro Biello elected to start a veteran lineup. But, for this second match, he went with a team that was loaded with Academy players and trialists — and roster players looking to improve their standings with the club.

Bryan Arguez, the midfielder who spent half of the 2012 season on loan to FC Edmonton, played all of the 80-minute match in Florence. That’s significant because the Eddies have made it very public that they’d love Arguez to come back and take the holding midfield spot in 2013. But the Impact is giving the American midfielder a long look in this camp — and he may have played so well in his half-season in NASL, that he might have worked his way back into the Impact’s plans for the future.

Mircea Ilcu, who was with the Impact in the club’s final season in NASL (2011) but was moved back to the Academy for the 2012 campaign, started the match and scored the opening goal, finishing off a low cross from fullback Dennis Iapichino.

No. 1 SuperDraft pick Andrew Wenger may have had a shout for the second Impact tally, but it was ruled an own goal after his attempt was deflected by a Fiorentina defender into his own goal.

Zakaria Messoudi, from the Impact’s U21 squad, cleverly finished a cross from Zarek Valentin for the Impact’s third goal.

Oussama Essabr, a Moroccan trialist, scored the Impact’s fourth goal. Essabr, once part of Juventus’s youth setup, has kicked around the lower Italian divisions over the past several seasons and is hunting for a career kickstart in MLS.

Maxime Crepeau, the Canadian keeper who got hurt playing for his country at the 2011 U-17 World Cup, played the full 80, while back-up keeper Evan Bush, who won a job with the club out of NASL but only made limited MLS appearances, sat on the bench. With Greg Sutton’s retirement and the release of midfielder Evan James, Crepeau could be a candidate to fill a Canadian roster spot.

The Impact will likely feature more “A” players when it faces Fiorentina’s top side (that is, players not impacted by international call-ups) on Thursday.