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Struggling Impact bring back French defender Rod Fanni for rest of 2019 season

Aug 26, 2019 | 5:13 PM

MONTREAL — The Montreal Impact have signed French centre back Rod Fanni until the end of the 2019 season.

Fanni, 37, is returning to the Impact after starting 26 Major League Soccer games and appearing in one Canadian Championship contest in 2018. He was named to the MLS team of the week three times.

Before joining the Impact, he had played 362 games in Ligue 1, including 330 starts, through a 15-year career in the French first division, with RC Lens, OGC Nice, Stade Rennais and Olympique de Marseille.

He won the Trophee des champions in 2011 and the Coupe de la Ligue in 2011 and 2012 with Marseille,.

Fanni played five games with the French national team between 2008 and 2010, making his senior debut on October 14, 2008, in a friendly game against Tunisia.

The Impact heed a boost as a string of poor results have knocked them put of a playoff spot in the MLS Eastern Conference. Montreal is coming off a 2-1 loss at Toronto on Saturday that allowed the Reds to jump over the Impact into the seventh and final post-season spot in the East.

The Canadian Press