Four minutes, and the Impact’s mission in Kansas City got even more complex.
A good result at Sporting Park would have appeased Montreal after an eventful week that saw the club address All-Star defender Laurent Ciman’s family situation and trade want-away center back Bakary Soumare to FC Dallas for Kyle Bekker.
Then again, at Sporting Park, the Impact’s games go either really, really well or really, really wrong. Benny Feilhaber scored in the fourth minute, and it felt like the latter.
In the end, it could have been much worse. Head coach Frank Klopas called the 2-1 loss “one of the better road games we played.” But he rued the mental mistakes that would have thrown any game plan out the window.
“We’ve got to realize that we can’t take risks and chances away from home against a quality team,” Klopas told reporters postgame. “Other than that, I felt that we regrouped. The focus was to win the second half. I felt we did that. We pushed the game. Unfortunately, those early mistakes we made cost us.”
Marco Donadel committed the first mistake as he tried to check in front of Roger Espinoza to get past him in front of the box. But Espinoza robbed Donadel and fed Krisztian Nemeth, who assisted Feilhaber in Ciman’s channel – the center back, convinced that Donadel would get past Espinoza, had moved upfield to restore numbers in midfield.
The second was Calum Mallace’s missed turn when receiving a Victor Cabrera pass in the 34th minute. Feilhaber pounced and slipped a through ball to Dom Dwyer who made it 2-0.
Dilly Duka credited Sporting KC with sitting in well in the first half. But he also lamented Montreal’s overly adventurous game in the first half, playing like a home team.
“I think we need to be a better away team,” Duka said. “We have to play like an away team. We can’t be the aggressors. We can’t, from the beginning, think we’re going to go and score a goal. We've got to work off the other team’s mistakes, just like Kansas City did to us.”
And Montreal have now won only once in last 27 away games – at Columbus on June 6. They’ve been unable to build on that in terms of results – they’ve picked up 1 of 12 available road points since.
In terms of performance, perhaps Montreal’s second half can be built upon.
“I thought we played better today, after our mistakes,” Dominic Oduro said. “We’ve just got to keep doing that, play on the road like we did in the second half, and we should be good. I’m not saying that we can win every game on the road, but at least, we’ve got to get a point or something.”
