200-Up for Evan!

Rubber-stamping an amazing run of consistency (even for a goalkeeper) Evan Bush tomorrow evening will become the first Montreal Impact player to reach the milestone of 200 appearances (all competitions) in the club’s MLS-era.

Bush was first blooded by Jesse Marsch in MLS on 30 June 2012 in a 0-3 defeat at RFK Stadium, Chris Pontius, Robbie Russell and Hamdi Salihi, grabbing the DC United goals. The only other players from the Impact 18 that day still playing MLS soccer are, Felipe (now DC United) and Zarek Valentin (Portland Timbers).

It would be another almost 16 months before the goalkeeper made his second MLS appearance, his only one under Marco Schallibaum, in a 0-1 defeat at LA Galaxy as the Impact closed in on a play-off berth, in October 2013.

There was another lengthy gap before Evan’s first ‘home’ appearance in MLS. This was in a 2-3 defeat to Portland Timbers at the end of July 2014. By then Frank Klopas had been installed as head coach, and it was under the former US-international that Bush then became established as the Impact’s first-choice No. 1, replacing Troy Perkins.

Of course during his period in waiting Bush did pick up valuable experience in Canadian Championship and CONCACAF Champions League matches. For those games he was the automatic choice.

When you consider tomorrow evening’s game against FC Dallas will be the club’s 314th competitive fixture since becoming an MLS club, and that Evan Bush will have started 200 of those and appeared on the bench as a non-playing substitute 85 times, it’s an amazing display of both consistency and loyalty to the club.

In other words, on only 29 occasions since 2012 has Evan Bush not been named in the Impact squad of 18!

During that time Evan has won two Canadian Championships (2103 & 2014) and was named CONCACAF Champions League Golden Glove in 2014/15, despite being suspended for the second-leg of the final.

His appearances record is as follows (not including tomorrow night) -

MLS Regular Season - 170 (+ 76 Unused Sub)
MLS Post Season - 8 (+ 1 Unused Sub)
Canadian Championship - 8 (+8 Unused Sub)
CONCACAF Champs Lge - 13

Throughout his 199 appearances since 2012, Evan has 1 assist, 16 yellow cards and 1 red.
He’s kept a total of 51 clean-sheets and conceded 302 goals -

MLS Regular Season - Clean Sheets - 40 (Goals Conceded - 266)
MLS Post Season - Clean Sheets - 3 (Goals Conceded - 12)
Canadian Champ - Clean Sheets - 3 (Goals Conceded - 9)
CONCACAF CL - Clean Sheets - 5 (Goals Conceded - 15)