MONTREAL – Why is Marco Di Vaio retiring again?
Ah, yes, the family. Still, in Saturday’s 2-2 home draw to the New England Revolution, Di Vaio looked nothing like a longing father whose wife and daughters live an ocean away. Montreal head coach Frank Klopas even quipped that he thought he was “seeing Marco when he was 20 years old.”
Saturday was Di Vaio soccer in perhaps its purest form. Twice, his timing with a long ball behind the defense was impeccable. Twice, he finished clinically.
“I told him we’ve got to sign him for three more years. It was great to see,” Klopas told reporters in his postgame press conference. “Obviously, we talked about the last two games, finishing strong and trying to get two wins, especially for Marco. The goals that he scored today were great.
“It’d be great for the last game, especially his last game here, to have a packed house for him, to bid farewell to a great player and a great human being.”
A merry Di Vaio welcomed reporters in the locker room after the game, joking around with them before they turned on their cameras and recorders.
Then, Di Vaio the competitor came back to life: He was glad that he scored two goals, but upset that Montreal didn’t close the deal against the Revs after leading 2-1.
“We played a good first half. Then, we stopped playing,” Di Vaio said. “We stopped going forward, we played more calmly. We should have kept playing, trying to build counterattacks. Maybe we don’t have the mental strength to push games all the way through now. But we played a good first half.
“Like always, I tried to score and help the team," Di Vaio continued. “These were two really good passes by [Calum] Mallace and [Andres] Romero. I had the chance to score two good goals to leave something to all the fans.”
Mallace, who confirmed that Lee Nguyen’s wicked equalizer deflected off of him, called Di Vaio “an inspiration to all soccer players.”
“I played that ball, and as soon as I played it and I saw that the offside flag stayed down, I knew he was going to put it away,” Mallace said. “It was another classic Di Vaio finish, which is world-class.”
