The Montreal Impact appear to have looked to their own pitch to make a change on the sidelines.
According to an online Sports Illustrated report, the Impact are set to name defender Alessandro Nesta as their next head coach.
The club is yet to make a formal announcement on the fate of current head coach Marco Schallibaum, but his days at Stade Saputo appear to be numbered after a scrappy 3-0 loss to the Houston Dynamo in Thursday's MLS Cup Knockout Round match-up.
The Impact saw three players sent off during the match, including a pair – Marco di Vaio and Andres Romero – as a result of an altercation in the 89th minute of an already out-of-reach match.
Major League Soccer fined the Impact $25,000 and Schallibaum $2,500 on Friday for their parts in the melee.
The punishment prompted the following response by MLS insider Ives Galarcep:
"Wonder if Schallibaum pays fine if he's no longer Montreal's coach[?]" Galarcep, who is the editor in chief of soccer site soccerbyives.net tweeted on Friday night. "Getting sense he won't be around to pay it. Maybe Alessandro Nesta can."
Galarcep followed that tweet very shortly with another, more informative statement.
"By the way, when I mentioned Nesta before, it wasn't to say he'll be playing. Hearing growing rumblings Nesta could wind up Montreal's coach."
Both di Vaio and Romero have been suspended for the first three games of the 2014 season for Thursday night's actions.
Should the change occur it would mark the third full-time coach the Impact have employed since entering MLS in 2012.
The club made its debut in the league under Jesse Marsch, who parted ways with the club after leading the Impact to a respectable 12-16-6 mark.
Schallibaum would take over from Marsch in January of 2013 and would enjoy early success, guiding the Impact to the top of the MLS' Eastern Conference for much of the first half of the 2013 season.
However, the Impact would register just one win over their last eight matches and fall all the way to fifth, forcing a do-or-die, one-game playoff on the road in Houston.
Nesta, 37, appeared in 31 games with the Impact over the past two seasons after being acquired in July of 2012.
The former Serie A standout has been capped 78 times for the Italian national team including appearances in the 2000 and 2004 European Championships as well as the 1998, 2002 and 2006 World Cups.
He was a member of Italy's World Championship 2006 squad, although injuries forced him out of the knock-out matches matches at that tournament, forcing him to celebrate his country's first Jules Rimet Trophy in 24 years from the sidelines.
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