MONTREAL – No wonder training was postponed by 90 minutes in Montreal on Thursday.
The Impact are in the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF Champions League. Wednesday’s 0-0 tie between El Salvador’s FAS and the New York Red Bulls was cause for late-night TV watching and, perhaps, just a tiny bit of celebration. The Impact’s nine-point total in Group 3 is now too much for New York to match.
Some got together to watch the game, but everyone caught up on Thursday morning in the locker room. Montreal head coach Frank Klopas congratulated his players but reminded them that they still must build momentum for next year in the remaining MLS fixtures despite playoff elimination.
“We’re definitely a different team at this point of the season than we were at the beginning,” Klopas told reporters. “It’s important now that we stay focused and we continue to work hard and finish in a very positive way.”
That includes the last group game in New York on October 22, as Montreal fancy a top-four seed in the CCL quarterfinals, which would allow them to host the second leg of the series next March. Costa Rica’s Herediano, Mexico’s Pachuca, and D.C. United have all clinched their quarterfinal berth as well.
“When we came in, that’s what everyone was saying: the last game means a lot, because you can miss some big teams in the next round if we go to New York and get a result,” forward Jack McInerney said.
“It’s definitely on our mind right now. We want to get the three points and put ourselves in a good position.”
No matter what team Red Bulls' head coach Mike Petke fields, it won’t be an easy task for Montreal, who had to work hard for their 1-0 win at home against New York’s group of mostly reserve players.
Marco Di Vaio, for one, expected a similar New York team to win comfortably at FAS.
“I thought yesterday that New York would win easily, 2-0, 3-0,” Di Vaio said. “The team I saw last week here played well against us. Not everyone came here, but they played well. Yesterday, I was surprised by the way they played, but so much the better for us.”
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This gives Montreal a chance to exorcise some demons. Eliminated at the group stage last year, the Impact had already put together a dramatic run to the quarterfinals in 2009. This two-part tragedy saw Montreal beat Santos Laguna 2-0 in front of 55,571 supporters at the Olympic Stadium, only for them to concede two stoppage-time goals in a 5-2 loss in the return leg.
“For sure, the president [Joey Saputo], Nick [De Santis, then-Technical Director] and Matt [Jordan, then-goalkeeper] – he played that game – recall it,” said Maxim Tissot, who had just joined the Impact’s affiliate Trois-Rivières Attak at the time. “We have to flush that out. We want to go beyond the quarterfinals because of that."
