Finally, the narrative has changed.
For the last year-and-a-half or so, telling the story of a Montreal Impact MLS road game was to describe how, once more, they’d failed to win. Sure, there’d be the odd draw that would get their supporters’ hopes up. But for the most part, it was the story of an infamous streak dating back to Sept. 28, 2013.
On Saturday, for the first time in 25 games, the Montreal Impact twisted the plot, winning on the road, 2-1 at Columbus Crew SC.
“It’s fantastic for our confidence,” goalkeeper Evan Bush told reporters postgame. “It’s a very good team, regardless of whether they’re at home or on the road. I thought the way we played and managed the game tonight was fantastic. We kept the ball when we needed to. We defended well when we needed to, and then we took advantage of the transition space when we had it.”
All of a sudden, Montreal have won four of their last five. And while they sit in eighth place in the East, they are fourth-best in terms of points per game total.
The Impact, quite simply, put together one of their best-ever road performances in MLS. It had shades of their recent CONCACAF Champions League successes, but even better – for all their heroics, Montreal didn’t actually win away from home in this spring's CCL knockout stage.
“If we don’t press all well as a team, that’s when you get in trouble with [Columbus],” head coach Frank Klopas said. “So we wanted to let the back three have the ball and squeeze them in certain moments. The first half, I think we had some problems on the left side with their movement, especially when [Federico] Higuain was getting the ball. He had a lot of time to pick the movement of [Ethan] Finlay and [Hector] Jimenez. But we adjusted.”
Maxim Tissot, who will join Canada for their next two World Cup qualifiers starting next Thursday, scored Montreal’s first away goal in MLS for 466 minutes. Felipe, now of New York Red Bulls, had scored their last on Oct. 18, 2014, in Toronto.
“You can always improve, but I think that, tonight, everyone did the job that they should do,” Tissot said. “As I’ve said from the beginning, if Frank puts me on the field, I’ll do the job he asks me to do, and everyone did so tonight.”
Higuain’s stoppage-time strike made Andres Romero’s goal the winner, but no Impact player will argue about whose goal meant more. This is a team that will savor the result, but with an eye to what's next.
“Hopefully,” Bush said, “it opens the floodgates for us on the road.”
