MONTREAL – On Tuesday night, four Toronto FC players and three of their colleagues from the Montreal Impact battled side-by-side as Canada suffered an honorable 1-0 defeat to Colombia in an international exhibition.
This Saturday afternoon, things go back to normal as they resume their Canadian rivalry when the Montreal Impact travel to meet Toronto FC at BMO Field (2 pm ET, UDN).
But even in Canadian national team camp, Saturday's MLS regular season rendez-vous was a topic of discussion. The good guys of TFC, as Impact defender Karl Ouimette called them, are going through a rough patch that has all but extinguished their playoff hopes. And Montreal has a chance, with a win or a draw, to mathematically knock them out.
“I told them that we want to whack them for sure,” Ouimette said with a chuckle. “We want to put them out of the playoffs like they tried to do to us last year. They’re good friends, so they took it well. But of course, we talked about it.”
TFC fulfilled their task on the last day of the 2013 season, beating Montreal 1-0 at home. But the Impact still had a lifeline: Chicago lost 5-2 at New York, and Montreal barely held on to the fifth and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
“We want to give them a taste of their own medicine," Ouimette said. "But even without that [2013 game], we would have wanted to knock them out. It wouldn’t have mattered.”
The stakes have changed from last year: It’s TFC who desperately need a result this time although they'll be missing their two biggest signings of the offseason: the injured Jermain Defoe and the suspended Michael Bradley. The Impact have selection issues of their own, with Ignacio Piatti still out injured with knee tendonitis and Marco Di Vaio not expected to start as he returns from Italy on Friday.
“For them, it’s do or die, so they’re going to step high and put a lot of pressure,” head coach Frank Klopas told reporters. “They know that they’re good in the air, so it’s going to be a game where I think they’re going to come out very strong.”
An added incentive for Montreal is that Saturday represents the last chance to win an MLS road game in 2014. The Impact have gone 0-12-4 in their 16 regular season road matches thus far and their only away win of the season came on August 20 in the CONCACAF Champions League, a competition they get back to next Wednesday in New York (Oct. 22 at 8 pm ET on Fox Sports 2 and UDN).
Olivier Tremblay covers the Montreal Impact for MLSsoccer.com.
