EXCLUSIVE

MONTREAL — If Marco Donadel doesn’t need a second to respond to questions regarding next week’s first leg of the MLS Eastern Conference Final between the Montreal Impact and Toronto FC, it’s because he’s already given the game a great deal of thought.

In the same way the midfielder likes to know what he wants to do with the ball before it has arrived at his feet, in our interview this week at the Impact’s training facility the 33-year-old often knew what he wanted to say before the questions were even finished being posed. He’s already considered many of the game’s factors; it’s on-field situations and surrounding narratives.

Davide Favaro, a former player who was Donadel’s roommate at AC Milan academy and now runs the Milano United youth academy in Miami, told Goal by telephone that of all the players he encountered in his career, Donadel was “always the most mentally prepared."

First and foremost, Donadel understands that this is going to be a difficult matchup for the Impact. At the same time, however, it’s precisely because of the challenge, that he likes his team’s chances of progressing.

“The more difficult the game is the better we play, which means were very optimistic,” Donadel told Goal. “This is our strength: that we never consider ourselves strong, but we know that if we give our maximum we have a lot of quality.”

It’s been a pattern for the Impact over the past two seasons, and a line often repeated by players and staff over the past few weeks — which saw the Impact surprisingly defeat D.C United and the New York Red Bulls in the opening two playoff rounds — that when the stakes are high the team comes together and raises its game.

This was very much the case at the beginning of last season when the Impact were beginning their journey in the CONCACAF Champions League knockout round. They weren't expected to go past the first round and yet they went all the way to the final.

And they weren't expected to do much in the league that season either. With a few months remaining in the campaign, the Impact were struggling below the playoff line and erstwhile head coach Frank Klopas was fired. But soon after local legend Mauro Biello took over and Didier Drogba arrived, the Impact drove up the standings, finishing third, and for a time looked unstoppable. They eventually lost in the Conference semifinals to the Columbus Crew — by one goal, which came in the extra time of the second leg.

This year has been a similar story. Outside of a very fast start, where they won four of their first six games, the Impact haven’t often been convincing. There’s been some bad down periods, including a four-game home stretch between August and September where they failed to win and were outscored 11-3.

But once again, when the games have mattered most, the Impact have found a way to play their best soccer.

“Here the league is a little different from Europe where you can have a bad period and then it’s difficult to finish at the top, because you’ve dropped too many points, but here the important thing is to arrive in good shape going into the playoffs and then we see what the teams are really about,” Donadel said. “We showed last year and this year that when the games count we’re ready. The beginning of the season doesn’t matter much. We can have ups and downs during the year, because there’s a lot of new players, you face new situations, but when things really matter, we have been able to step up our game.”

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Donadel partly attributes this ability to perform under adversity to the team's growing maturity and understanding of what is required to be successful. The Impact have come under criticism in the past for not finding a precise playing philosophy, but Donadel argues that what’s most important is having a strong team spirit.

“I don’t think we have a strong identify of play, like a Barcelona does or some other teams, but having one, single identity of play is a stupidity, because then it’s so easy for other teams to adapt to your game,” Donadel said. “So I think the real identity has to do with the way you approach games. I think we’re starting to have the right approach, where we give everything on the field, we stay united, we help each other. Attacking players like [Ignacio] Piatti and [Domenic] Oduro, Matteo [Mancosu] make runs for their teammates, help defend, attack; we get angry at each other when someone makes a mistake, but it’s done in the right way.

"This is a strong team mentality, and it’s the product of Mauro (Biello) and his staff’s work. We have a great desire to work; we’re here at 9 a.m.; and even at 2 or 3 p.m. there’s still players that are around, looking at video, different details. So, we’ve grown a lot from this point of view, but the identity is to fight, like our club motto says, tous pour gagner—everyone to win. We’re starting to have that mentality.”

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Since signing with the Impact as a free agent before the start of the 2015 season, Donadel has had ups and downs of his own. He needed a few months to adapt to a new league, a new city and a new club. And his performances in the beginning suffered for the fact that, when he first arrived, he hadn’t played a competitive game in over six months.

But the most difficult challenge was living without his wife and three daughters in Montreal for the first half of the first year. They couldn’t all make the move in January with the daughters—Beatrice, Maria and Anita Emilia—being half way through the school year.

On a few occasions, Donadel admits, life became so difficult that he considered leaving the club.

“I won’t hide from you the fact that there was two, three times where I took my suitcase and wanted to leave, because the sacrifices were too many,” Donadel said. “But here they’ve treated me like a son, that was priceless, and I’ve been trying to pay back everything they’ve given me, the confidence they gave me, with my performances.

"Then everything became simpler, my family came over, I got better physically, the results started to come, and then, like I’ve said, when the games matter, we’re here. Maybe other teams show a lot throughout the year, like Washington, they had a very nice period, New York since July were excellent, but then in the games that mattered we were the ones who passed.”

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Sitting in front of the Impact’s back four and giving license to fellow central midfielders Patrice Bernier and Hernan Bernardello to occupy more attacking positions, Donadel has not only been an important part of the Impact’s game, but has quietly been one of best midfielders in the league.

There was initial concern about how he would be able to handle the physicality of MLS, but he says he hasn’t found that aspect to be an issue.

“This thing of MLS being a very physical league, is not something I’ve noticed,” Donadel said. “Even when I look at the numbers of the games when I was playing in Serie A I was doing 12, 13 kilometers, minimum, while here I’m doing 11, 10 and a half. A kilometer or a kilometer and a half less isn’t nothing. If you compare the Premier League with Serie A for sure it’s less tactical and more instinctive, there’s more running, physical in that sense, where you’re often in these 1 v. 1 sprint situations. Here you see it’s starting to become a lot more thoughtful, with teams like Toronto, who like to play, or New York City, that like to keep the ball. But I don’t see MLS as being more physical than other leagues.”

What Donadel does say about MLS is that he feels American teams are given special treatment, both on and off the field. He also says that this is justified because the league is after all comprised of 17 U.S. teams as opposed to only three Canadian clubs, but that it does give the Impact extra incentive to perform well.

“I’ll tell you that we feel like everyone is against us,” he said. "And this is perfect for us".

Donadel was also irritated by Piatti’s exclusion from the final three-man shortlist for MVP, despite the fact that the Argentine winger managed to score 17 goals from midfield.

“Seeing Nacho not being considered for the MVP, after all he did this season, is complete insanity; it’s anti-soccer,” Donadel said. “When you see the goals Nacho scored this year, I mean I figure the reason is that people aren’t watching the games, because otherwise it’s unexplainable.”

It's not a surprise then that Donadel takes extra delight from the fact that the Eastern Conference final will be an all-Canadian affair for the first time. It could also be historic from an attendance point of view, since close to 60,000 tickets already have been sold for the first leg at Olympic Stadium—the most attended playoff game was the MLS Cup final at Gillette Stadium in 2002 between the LA Galaxy and the New England Revolution, which had a crowd of 61,316.

“If we want to grow this league, we need to increase the fascination for it, with matchups that are intense, heated, that mark history,” Donadel said. “With Montreal and Toronto in the conference final, who knows who will win, but it creates one point for future generations, where we can look back and say ‘oh yeah there was that year, where there was that final’, it creates a whole movement, beautiful things.

“In Italy I grew up with that, historical derbies, won, lost, Milan beating Inter 5-0, these things create history, we remember the things that have happened, the players that have come and gone, and so having this rivalry between Montreal and Toronto, between Canada and the U.S., is only a good thing.”

Though Donadel considers TFC to be one of the best teams in the league, he says the Impact are ready to make life very difficult for them.

It’s the sort of position they’ve been in plenty of times before.

“It’s going to be tough for them, because we have experience, we know how to defend, manage games, and at the same time, we also have quality up front,” he said. “They’re going to have to be perfect if they want to advance, because we’re going to be perfect.”

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