MONTREAL — After a difficult road trip in San Jose and New York where the Montreal Impact only managed one point out of a possible six, Marco Schällibaum’s men were back to winning ways on Saturday.
The 3-2 win over Real Salt Lake wasn’t, by any means, an eye-catching performance from the Impact. For the most part, they looked sluggish and RSL’s quick and physical attacking paring of Olmes Garcia and Devon Sandoval caused Montreal’s back-line all sorts of problems, especially in the first half. Troy Perkins, who may very well be the best goalkeeper in the league at the moment, was once again forced to bail Montreal out on a couple of occasions with some terrific reaction saves.
Wednesday programming alert: Watch the Montreal Impact v the Vancouver Whitecaps in the first leg of the Canadian club championship final on Sportsnet ONE. Live coverage begins at 7:30 pm ET/4:30 pm PT.
Considering the apparent fatigue of the players on the field and the Impact’s depleted bench – Davy Arnaud, Alessandro Nesta, Andrea Pisanu and Daniele Paponi are all out injured – after Kyle Beckerman gave RSL the lead from a corner kick in the 77th minute, an Impact comeback seemed very unlikely.
And yet, Montreal, remarkably, were able to overturn the result. Marco Di Vaio immediately responded with his sixth goal of the season three minutes later – though the goal should not have stood because he was clearly in an offside position, the Italian has been on the wrong end of offside calls this season and probably deserved one going his way.
After relentless pressure from the Impact in the final 10 minutes, Matteo Ferrari scored the winner in the dying seconds of extra time with an acrobatic finish from a Blake Smith corner kick, making up for his earlier own goal which had opened the scoring for the visitors.
Schällibaum was ecstatic with the win and in the post-game press conference he applauded the character his players exhibited over the 90 minutes.
“It was heroic of us today (to come back in the game). The schedule has been very difficult and with all the travelling we’ve done even I was tired today, but it’s the players that have to perform not me,” Schällibaum said. “They did very well today against a very good team and I take my hat off to them.
“We pushed hard until the end and we did have a bit of luck to score in the last minute, but we weren’t lucky on Wednesday, so things have a way of balancing out.”
The win keeps the Impact at the top of the Eastern Conference within one point of the New York Red Bulls in first place and with three games in hand. The Impact are already eight points ahead of Columbus in sixth place, and with the early struggles of DC, Chicago, Toronto and New England, it almost seems like making the playoffs this year is a given at this point for the Impact.
For now the focus is trying to finish in the top three positions so as to avoid the first round of the playoffs. But the real question with the Impact is just how far can they really go if and when they do make the post-season? Can they beat Kansas City, Houston or New York over two legs?
As much as the Impact have started the season strongly, we probably haven’t seen the best of them yet, simply because they’ve had to deal with different injuries.
But after the Impact’s 10-day break, following Wednesday’s Canadian club championship final first leg against Vancouver, Nesta, Arnaud and Pisanu should be returning to the lineup, as well as Paponi soon after that.
Felipe seems to be returning to his best as well. The Brazilian was a key player for the Impact in their expansion year and got this season off to a slow start, but he is now coming off a string of positive performances. On Saturday against RSL, he scored his second goal of the season and was named player of the match.
The win will serve as a great morale booster for the Impact in light of their first leg against the Whitecaps this week and they will be able to enjoy their 10-day break knowing that they’re in very good shape in the Eastern Conference.
Nick Sabetti is a Montreal-based writer who covers the Montreal Impact for Goal.com. Follow Nick on Twitter.