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Win, tie or lose, the outcome of the game between the Montreal Impact and the New England Revolution was predicted to be ugly. With so many games already played, MLS teams know each other so well that it leaves little room for surprise. But no one said that shock, a gruesome injury and drama would not be at the rendez-vous at Stade Saputo. He was stretched out and left the game, replaced by Dimitry Imbongo.
It was almost a typical starting XI for the Impact but the surprise change was to see Felipe Martins start on the bench. Marco Schallibaum took the bet to rely on Andres Romero to play behind Marco Di Vaio. Without their young veteran outside backs,Hassoun Camara and Jeb Brovsky, it was up to Maxime Tissot and Davy Arnaud to fill those shoes.
In typical Impact fashion, the home team started strong at the beginning of both halves but that was pretty much it. A dreadful injury to Saer Sene added an errie atmosphere of silence and gloom. The French forward's foot was stuck on the Stade Saputo new pitch as Davy Arnaud tackled the ball away cleanly, in the 18-yard box.
Even though it could have been a momentum change for the visitors, it was the Revolution that scored the only goal of the game. Jose Goncalves gets the ball inside the box as a cross ,on the right aide, passes through 3 Impact players to find the New England Captain.
The Impact did have a good chance to score, via Andres' Romero only decent play of the game. On a counter attack, the Argentinean finds Di Vaio in the box but the Italian's shot is saved by Matt Reis.
It ended up being the only real chance on goal for the whole game, even when Felipe Martins and Andrew Wenger came in to the game , during the second half.
Marco Schallibaum summed up the game perfectly during the post-game press conference.
The will was there, but the quality was not.
With a mid-week game against the LA Galaxy in LA and the Philadelphia Union coming to Stade Saputo next Saturday, the chances of the Montreal Impact just went from almost-assured to dangerously compromised.