Montreal Impact's Bernier asks for leave after wife's criticism of club

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Fran
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Montreal Impact's Bernier asks for leave after wife's criticism of club

Post by Fran » Fri Aug 07, 2015 11:08 pm

Is this a common thing in soccer?

http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/inside- ... lub-080715

A Montreal Impact player has asked for a few days away from the team after his wife criticized the club for keeping him on the bench.

Midfielder Patrice Bernier has not asked for a trade and coach Frank Klopas hopes Bernier stays with the team. The 35-year-old Canadian has played for the national team and was the Impact's MVP in 2012.

Bernier has appeared in only 13 of 20 games. He was left out of the starting lineup Wednesday night even though a spot was open because Marco Donadel was serving a one-game suspension.

That prompted wife Melisa Barile in a Facebook posting to call the matter ''unacceptable and disrespectful.'' She says her husband should consider going to another team.

Bernier says the posting ''became bigger than she thought it would.'' He now hopes the issue will cool down so he can ''turn the page and move on.''

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Post by Pounder » Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:51 pm

That specific one? That's a first.

Have people requested and received leave in all the major sports? YES.

Major European soccer clubs: players do tend to call shots. Of course, at least from what I've read, bonuses are usually tied more to winning than to individual statistics. (This might be changing) So there's pressure among teammates to stay in line. However, the big clubs have a second string of players who would, in an American salary cap environment, probably be playing for other clubs. So the pressures for "play me or something happens" are pretty intense, though counterbalanced by "they're paying me more than Sunderland would." Players in Europe with the will to do so get themselves moved rather regularly, length of contract or not, usually aided by the fact that most European transactions are cash rather than trade.

Thing is... the players who can make those demands are usually younger. They're not 35 y/o Canadian internationals with little name recognition outside Canada (Canada has trouble qualifying for the semifinal round of CONCACAF, never mind the Hexagonal). Frankly, there's only a handful of people playing for their country at 35. So this is kind of funny, really.
Last edited by Pounder on Sun Aug 09, 2015 3:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by nksports » Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:26 pm

It sounds more like you'd hear from a disgruntled parent of a player for a U12 team.

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