The Montreal Impact are going to try their luck on Wednesday night without their big guns.
Evan Bush, Marco Donadel, Didier Drogba, Justin Mapp and Ignacio Piatti all featured in Montreal’s 0-0 tie at the LA Galaxy on Saturday, but they all returned to Montreal before the Impact take on the San Jose Earthquakes (10:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE) Wednesday at Avaya Stadium.
This, Impact interim head coach Mauro Biello told MLSsoccer.com, was the plan all along. Biello intended to rotate his squad, giving some players an opportunity to keep building their form back from inactivity.
“I believe I have a lot of good players on this team,” Biello said in a phone interview. “There are players that have come back from national team appearances. It’s important, now, to manage my roster in the best way possible. I would have probably kept them here if I was somewhere on the East Coast playing New York or D.C., but the fact is that on Thursday, with the 10-hour, door-to-door travel day – and that's if everything goes well – and the three-hour difference, it becomes a little bit difficult to reorganize.”
This will also be a chance for others to prove their worth as Montreal enter the last stretch of the MLS Cup Playoffs race. The Impact stand in sixth place in the Eastern Conference. They are tied on points with Orlando City, but with a whopping four games in hand.
Montreal still have to play at Orlando on Oct. 3. In the meantime, after the San Jose date, three home games against Eastern Conference opponents await – New England, Chicago and D.C. United. This is an opportunity the Impact do not intend to pass up.
“These are head-to-head games that can decide our fate,” Biello said. “You want to give yourself the best chance to play in these games with all your options open and fresh. This is the way I foresee it.”
Then again, the Impact do not necessarily have to look behind their backs to Orlando and the like. Toronto slipping at home to New England last weekend provides Montreal with an opportunity to catch them in a race for playoff seeding.
“I don’t want to look too far up or too far back,” Biello said. “I just want to try to focus on getting the team playing, coming together, playing with rhythm and confidence. Then those scenarios will take care of themselves. But my main focus is on what’s in front of me and what I need to do to help this team find rhythm and continuity. Everything else after will play out.”
Center back Laurent Ciman also will not play against San Jose, having served only half of his two-game suspension. He rejoined the team in California after international duty but has since returned to Montreal and is available to play Saturday against New England (8 pm ET; MLS LIVE).
