HARRISON, N.J.—The Montreal Impact switched up their formation on Saturday, with the idea being to find space on the break to punish the New York Red Bulls.
It worked out initially, but wasn’t enough in the end.
The Impact took a first-half lead but fell, 3-1, on the road against the Red Bulls in a sweltering Eastern Conference tilt at Red Bull Arena on Saturday night. Montreal also finished the match with one less player after defender Ambroise Oyongo was sent off in the 48th minute with a straight red card.
While the night eventually proved one to forget for the Impact, things started brightly. Going with a 4-4-2 diamond as opposed to their usual 4-3-3 look, the Impact took the lead 21 minutes in when Matteo Mancosu fed Ignacio Piatti for an easy finish on a lightning-fast counterattack.
The lead was short-lived, however, as Bradley Wright-Phillips scored one of his two goals on the night a minute later.
“We hurt them, I thought, and we let them back in that game,” said Impact head coach Mauro Biello. “For the most part, the first part of the first half they had the ball, but there wasn’t any clear chances aside from the one that [Evan] Bush makes a save on Wright-Phillips.
“I think that, overall, if we were a little bit sharper, maybe we could’ve gotten another one, but defensively we need to be better.”
Indeed, Montreal’s defense left much to be desired on Saturday. Apart from giving up an immediate equalizer to New York, the Impact also surrendered a dagger of a goal a minute into the second half.
The play initiated from kickoff, as the known-to-be-tricky Red Bulls lined up three players on the right wing before launching a ball over the top down that side. The overload left the Impact scrambling, and a pass across the penalty area from Mike Grella and fortunate deflection saw Sean Davis push the Red Bulls’ lead to 3-1.
Montreal never recovered from that gut-punch.
“A little bit disappointed that we come out that way after the [halftime break] and give them that goal right away,” Biello said. “I think that we were going to get chances and we did going forward. I think we could have probably tied that game up, but today we weren’t at our best.”
The uphill climb became steeper for Montreal two minutes after Davis struck, as Oyongo was ejected for a tackle on the Red Bulls midfielder. It was a nightmare start to the second half, and one that ultimately doomed the Impact’s chances of getting a result in their 4-4-2 setup.
“We came out with a good gameplan. In the attack, we were having 3-v-2 and 3-v-3 match-ups, but we had some defensive errors that cost us,” Piatti said. “We went down, 2-1, and then the ejection hurt us, playing 10 on 11. We also started the second half asleep, giving up a goal 20 seconds in that finished the game off.”
