Montreal Impact salvage undeserved road point vs DC United

We were relishing the prospect of another strong showing from our Montreal Impact and that is exactly the opposite of what we got. The Impact were not well organized offensively or defensively.

They did not have accurate passing and were dominated by a DC United team that as it currently stands, is not even in the MLS playoffs. Luckily, Hernan Bernadello was able to salvage a point for the Bleu Blanc Noir.

From the opening whistle, it was evident that the Impact were not playing at the same level as DC United. The Impact spent much of the opening minutes desperately fending off attacks deep in their own zone and after 20 minutes of haphazard defending, the inevitable occurred: DC United opened the scoring via Patrick Mullins.

Hassoun Camara attempted a clearance but the feeble attempt was easily intercepted by Marcelo Sarvas who then played the ball onto his teammate Taylor Kemp. Kemp then sent in a cross towards Mullins who leaped clear over Victor Cabrera before beating Evan Bush.

If Impact fans were hoping that early goal would wake up Montreal it did not. Sadly, the Impact continued their sloppy play and let DC United keep up the pressure. After 45 minutes of play the Impact only had 32% possession, 3 attempted shots and no shots on target.

I was expecting Mauro Biello to rally his troops at half time but his words must have fallen on deaf ears. The Impact kept on conceding nice opportunities to DC. The frustration was clearly mounting on the part of the Impact. Drogba vented some of that frustration in the 80^th minute when he kneed Marcelo. That ill advised move cost the legendary Ivorian a straight red card.

After the Impact went down to 10 men, I was sure that DC would rack up a few late goals. Luckily, the Montreal Impact proved me wrong when two substitutes combined to equalize the score line and salvage and undeserved road point.

The Impact won a corner and Marco Donadel sent in the resulting cross. That cross was headed down by a United defender but Matteo Mancosu out hustled everyone in the box in order to play the ball towards Bernadello. The Impact's newly acquired midfielder rifled a shot past the talented keeper Bill Hamid from just outside the penalty area.

After suffering through those 90 minutes of poor football, it is clear to me that the Impact were outplayed by DC United. We were lucky to score a late goal with only 10 men and the Impact will now be without the irreplaceable Didier Drogba for their match against Houston Dynamo at Saputo Stadium.

Let's all hope the Impact can return to the masterful football they played versus the Philadelphia Union last weekend.