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There was no seventh heaven for CF Montreal last night at Red Bull Arena. Aiming to extend their unprecedented unbeaten streak to seven they came up short against a New York City side that ended a two-game skid.
The game’s decisive moment came in the 29th minute when home goalkeeper Barazza’s long clearance wasn’t dealt with by Bassong allowing Ismail Tajouri-Shradi to lob over Pantemis, stranded in no-man’s-land, and into the unguarded net.
Nightmare defending in keeping with the win over Cincinnati for the Montrealers.
Montreal almost claimed first-blood when Johnsen masked a tenth minute volley off the crossbar with Barazza beaten.
It was not a lucky night for the lanky Norwegian. He thought he’d equalized a couple of minutes after the break after running onto to Ibrahim’s pass and outstripping the home defence before a confident and consummate finish past the exposed Barazza. But the assistant ref’s flag went up, rightly so, and New York City maintain their lead.
Libyan international Tajouri-Shradi almost doubled the advantage with a 15-yard shot which rattled the same crossbar a Johnsen did in the first-half. But despite several attack-mined substitutions by Wilfried Nancy to try salvage at least a point, there was no further scoring.
Montreal now drop to 5th in the East, NYCFC remain in 7th, just above the play-off line.
It’s on to Foxboro on Sunday now for Montreal to face Eastern Conference table-toppers New England Revolution, while New York City FC welcome Orlando City, this time to their Bronx home at Yankee Stadium the same day.
Line-ups -
NYCFC - Barazza - Tinnerholm, Chanot, Callens, Thorarinson (M Amundsen, 83)- Acevedo (Parks, 72), Morales - Tajouri-Shradi (Ibeagha, 90+2), Moralez - Castellanos (Thiago, 83)
Coach - Ronnie Deila
CF Montreal - Pantemis - Waterman, Camacho, Bassong (Choiniere, 80) - Brault-Guillard, Wanyama, Hamdy, Kizza (Lappalainen, 71) - Torres (Mihailovic, 60) - Johnsen, Ibrahim (Toye, 71)
Coach - Wilfried Nancy
Match Officials -
Referee: Ted Unkel
Asst Refs: Adam Wienckowski, Ryan Graves
4th Official: Joshua Encarnación
VAR: José Carlos Rivero
Asst VAR: Thomas Supple
Attendance: 2,873