Even though the Impact has 10 players from Quebec, the team can also count on a small squad of Americans — Lars Lyssand, Daniel Antoniuk, Andrew Weber — as well as a couple of Brazilians in Mauricio Salles and Zé Roberto, two Argentinians in Mauricio Vincello and Leonardo Di Lorenzo, a Japanese midfielder in Masahiro Fukasawa and even a striker from Trinidad-and-Tobago in Joel Bailey. Ibrahim Baldeh was born in Sierra Leone, but started playing for the Montreal-Concordia AAA team in his early teen years.
“We have a strong core of Quebec players, but we also have guys with an Italian background, others with a Spanish background, French, English,” points out defender Gabriel Gervais. “I like it, it’s a good reflection of Montreal as a cosmopolitan city.”
The three main languages in the Impact workplace — at field level — are therefore English, French... and Spanish.
Before and after practice, one can often see a group of five or six Montreal players stretching out together while bantering in Spanish. Among them are Vincello and Di Lorenzo, of course, but also Salles, Roberto, Gervais... and Fukasawa! Even Patrick Leduc and Antonio Ribeiro speak a few words of Spanish.
“It’s good, there are a lot of players who speak Spanish, so it made it easier for me to adapt to the team,” says Di Lorenzo. “On the field as well. I really feel comfortable.”
Gervais, whose mother is Peruvian, is also very comfortable in that group, to the point where he even uses all three languages on the field during games.
“I frequently use Spanish with Mauricio Vincello,” says Gervais about his teammate defender who plays to his left. “And a guy like Patrick (Leduc), I talk to him in French. It’s always best to use your first language on the field.”
As for the two Brazilians, whose mother tongue is Portuguese, they both learned Spanish during trips in Spain. Salles also played in Ecuador, as well as in Puerto Rico, where he made his USL debut with the Islanders.
“The two languages are very close, so it’s very easy to learn,” says Salles.
“But I have also started my French lessons!” he adds with a laugh.
“In Brazil, you can take classes in English or Spanish if you want,” explains Roberto. “But most people don’t, unless they realize that one day they want to travel around.”
As for Fukasawa, he says he feels more comfortable “reading in English and listening in Spanish”. That’s because he learned English in books when he was a student in Japan, and Spanish with the help of his teammates when he played soccer in Argentina.
“I have two dictionaries,” he says. “One Spanish and one English.”
And Fukasawa continues to improve his Spanish with the Impact — not only can he can speak Spanish at practice, he can also do it at home, since he shares an apartment with Vincello.
“So he (Vincello) talks to me in Spanish, and I’m getting better and better,” says the Japanese midfielder, who is into his second season with Montreal. “But I never imagined, when I first came here, that there would be so many players who speak Spanish!”
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