MONTREAL – It’s been an improbable run for the Montreal Impact who are 90 minutes away from achieving what no other soccer team outside of Mexico has ever done.
A 1-1 draw vs. Club America at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium in last week’s opening leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final has given the Impact the advantage ahead of the decisive return match at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium where a record crowd of 61,004 fans are expected to watch the festivities.
A win or a 0-0 draw on Wednesday night would see Montreal become the first Canadian and Major League Soccer team to win the tournament. Since its inception in 2008-09, the CONCACAF Champions League title has always been claimed by a team from Mexico, and this year marks only the second time that the final hasn’t been an all-Mexican affair—Real Salt Lake lost to Monterrey in 2011.
Wednesday programming alert: Watch Montreal Impact vs. Club America in the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions League final live on Sportsnet ONE and Sportsnet World. Coverage starts at 8:00 pm ET/5:00 pm PT. || Sportsnet World NOW || Broadcast schedule
It’s been an amazing ride for the Impact, who qualified for this competition by winning last year’s Canadian club championship. After making the MLS playoffs in 2013, Montreal finished dead last in the league a year ago, and few gave them much chance of advancing through the Champions League once the tournament resumed in February with the start of the knockout round.
Amazingly, Montreal has defied the odds in CONCACAF, dispatching Pachucha of Mexico and Costa Rican outfit Alajuelense in quick succession—riding their luck at times, but also playing some very good soccer along the way—to book their place in the final.
It’s even more amazing when you consider the roster turnover—coach Frank Klopas cleaned house in the off-season and brought in 11 new players ahead of the 2015 regular season.
And yet, this last-place team from a year ago that has somehow reached the pinnacle of North American club soccer continues to struggle in MLS. Montreal’s hapless form on the domestic front has carried over from a disastrous 2014, as they’ve gone winless through their first four games of the current MLS campaign.
It raises the obvious question: Why?
Why does a Montreal side that has bested some of the toughest teams in the CONCACAF region underachieve in MLS?
Like his team in league play, Klopas struggled to answer the question when it was posed to him before finally offering up a theory.
“It’s been really hard to focus on (MLS) and on CONCACAF at the same time,” Klopas said. “It’s been difficult. Normally when you play better quality teams your level raises.
“The only thing I can say is that it’s been very difficult with the travel, our focus and mentality of what goes into CONCACAF games. There are moments where you have so much energy and then two days you’re completely wiped out and drained because we put so much into it.”
Good fortune, according to Klopas, has also played a big part in Montreal’s CONCACAF success.
“A lot of things have gone our way when you look at where we started and how we ended up her now. There were many moments, like Cameron Porter’s last second goal (in the quarterfinal first leg) that went our way. Regardless of how good you are, sometimes you just never know if you’ll get there (without some luck),” Klopas offered.
MLS has been very accommodating of Montreal, rescheduling games for later in the season so that Impact, who will end up playing only one league match in April, can focus on the CONCACAF tournament.
But sitting in last place in the Eastern Conference in MLS, Montreal can’t afford to continue its lethargic play in the league once the Champions League is over or it risks falling even further back.
“When this is over we really have to focus because we have a lot of ground to make up, we’ve only played four games. It’s going to be a situation where we’re playing (two games a week) in MLS,” Klopas stated.
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