M.L.S.: Montreal Gambles on Star Power MONTREAL - In terms of both geography and North American soccer, the city of Montreal is an island. The bilingual Québécois have a proud culture that is foreign to everything that surrounds them, and L'Impact de Montreal - the Montreal Impact - has an identity that is unlike anything to be found in Major League Soccer. Despite the Impact's utmost efforts to market the club as a powerful force representing la belle province, this earnest approach has not created a sufficient recipe for success. Recently, the club has been scrambling for remedies to disappointing attendance numbers, and the solution of star power - particularly on the designated players Alessandro Nesta and his fellow Italian Marco Di Vaio - is the chosen cure. The Impact already needs something to reignite the market in Montreal; however, spending money on two players with a combined age of 71 years is an audacious gamble. In truth, the expansion Impact's first three months in M.L.S. have not been disastrous. But with recent expansion teams in the league hitting the ground running - most notably the Portland Timbers and Philadelphia Union - it was not unrealistic to expect the citizens of Montreal to take to their team and fill the newly renovated Stade Saputo, at least for most weeks in their inaugural season in the league. While this is the Impact's first season in M.L.S., passion for soccer in Montreal is not new. Often described as the most European city in North America, the people of Montreal do not need to be sold on soccer, which has been required of M.L.S. in smaller cities - such as Kansas City and Salt Lake City. Remnants of French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish culture are abundant throughout the city, and it is the norm for dozens of European soccer jerseys to flood the city's streets. Jesse Marsch - the Impact's American coach - has repeated two phrases since March: "finding a balance" and "continuing to progress." Despite functioning as a club for nearly 20 years in various minor leagues, in M.L.S. the Impact is in the position of an unbalanced teenager who grew six inches overnight. Both neutral and Impact fans perceive the club in a different light, and expectations have risen. While an average attendance of 12,000 was commendable last year in the second tier of North American soccer, the North American Soccer League, those same figures in M.L.S. are unacceptable for a club in a new stadium. Representatives of the Impact will be the first to admit that support for the club has not met expectations.The Impact executive vice president Richard Legendre told the club's Web site: "Our objectives are higher than what we are experiencing at the moment. We are aware that work remains to be done, and we are not looking at the market as acquired. The positive perception of the club and M.L.S. must transform into ticket sales. I found myself in Montreal on an evening when the Impact played Toronto, which was labeled as a Canadian derby. Despite an imminent trip to Stade Saputo and an Alessandro Nesta sighting in (the team owner) Joey Saputo's private box, my infusion into Montreal soccer culture actually began in a parking garage, during an encounter with a young fan listening on the radio to the Euro 2012 semifinal between Portugal and Spain. After explaining to him that I was attending the Impact match that night, he said: "That should be really fun! But I should warn you, we're not very good. Globalization has given the greatest push to soccer in North America, but it has subsequently stigmatized domestic soccer. And when fans in Montreal think of quality soccer, they have a Eurocentric mind-set; that is, the best soccer is to be found about 3,500 miles east. A consolation to not playing in an elite league in Europe is that the Impact is actually capable of beating any team in M.L.S. If there is one thing that causes widespread ambivalence in Montreal fans, it is a losing team. The Impact is not without a handful of impressive victories, but more often the team has been second best. There are certainly fans that will support the club through its struggles, but less dedicated supporters in the city would opt for almost anything over going to Stade Saputo with the expectation of watching the Impact lose. The presence of Nesta and Marco Di Vaio in Jesse Marsch's first team will help combat the notion that the Impact is inadequately equipped to compete in M.L.S. While the match against Toronto only attracted about 14,000 fans, sitting with the hundreds of Ultras of the Montreal Impact in Section 127 at Stade Saputo gives the illusion of sitting with 15,000 fans in the Virage Nord section of Marseille's Vélodrome. Even with 90 minutes of nonstop singing, however, the supporters in Stade Saputo's Sections 127 and 132 seem to be too heavily relied upon to provide the stadium's vibrant atmosphere, giving weight to the question: how can more of Montreal's soccer fans - the ones who can be marketed by the league and the club - be converted into loyal supporters of the Impact? As Montreal-based journalist Arcadio Marcuzzi said: "People in Montreal love soccer, they really do. But they also love an event. They love to be part of a buzz. David Beckham (and the Los Angeles Galaxy) coming to Montreal was an event. The first MLS match in the history of the Impact that was an event. But oddly enough, the first match at Stade Saputo was not seen as an event by the citizens of Montreal, nor was the derby against Canadian rivals from Toronto. Montreal is a diverse that its people can focus on a trip to Stade Saputo one week and anything from a world-renowned jazz festival to an art exhibit the next week. The Impact is appreciated as one of many pieces of Montreal's rich cultural offerings, but this distanced relationship will not benefit either the fans or the club in the long run. It is clear that the greatest challenge the organization faces is either instilling an intimate, habitual fan culture - a tall, long-term task - or consistently creating sufficient hype around the club's matches. Time will only tell whether or not Nesta and Di Vaio can provide the sustainable spark. Eric Beard is a writer for a number of publications, including his own, "A Football Report." Follow him on Twitter, @BeardEric