- Impact suffered a 0-1 loss against Nashville, which puts them in a bad position regarding the playoff battle.
- Seattle Sounders beat Vancouver Whitecaps, 0-2, making their situation complicated as well.
- Both matches were played on neutral grounds.
Impact’s Minimal but Painful Loss
This defeat would hurt Montreal’s chances of reaching the playoffs pretty severely. Impact now sits ninth in the East, with 23 points, just two more than Chicago Fire, who is the first team beneath the line. Nashville SC is a direct rival for the postseason place, and losing 0-1 against them is a pretty big setback.
“We don’t shoot and we don’t cross the ball enough. We find ourselves in good situations, but we don’t shoot on goal. We have to congratulate Nashville, who played well. They were alert, and their striker made the run and scored,” Thierry Henry said.
His team allowed the only goal after 33 minutes of play, when Randall Leal scored following a quickly taken free-kick, which caught Montreal’s players off guard.
Impact couldn’t beat Nashville’s goalkeeper Joe Willis, who now has nine shutouts in the MLS this season and leads in this category. The one situation in which the ball ended behind his back was after an offside, and Quioto’s goal was disallowed.
Montreal plays against Orlando SC next, and that is a must-win situation for Henry’s side. The game is set for next Sunday.
Rudiaz Unstoppable for Vancouver
The Peruvian star was by far the best player on the Providence Park this Tuesday night. Both of Seattle’s goals came following his actions. On one occasion, Ruidiaz himself scored, and in the next, he would set up an assist to Nicolas Lodeiro.
The first goal came in the 54th minute, with Rudiaz beating Bush from one very controversial situation. At first, it was ruled to be an offside, but later the referee overturned the initial decision pointing towards the kick-off spot.
Whitecaps’ head coach Marc dos Santos was furious due to this development. He also had troubles due to a tight schedule, as many of his players didn’t recover from injuries following last weekend’s challenges.
“It’s not what I wanted, it’s what I had to do,” he said. “I don’t think we were playing on the same ground (as Seattle) in terms of recovery. I’m very frustrated that this game had to be played in a schedule like that,” dos Santos said.
Ruidiaz assisted Nicolas Lodeiro for Seattle’s second goal, in the moments when the stopwatch reached the one-hour mark. It turned out to be the final result of the match, despite Vancouver’s attempts to come back and make this contest more interesting.
Whitecaps are still in the playoff zone, but not safe at all. Their future opponents are Portland Timbers this Sunday.
Both Canadian teams played their games on the neutral ground due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Vancouver met Seattle at Providence Park, while Montreal “hosted” Nashville at Red Bull Arena in New Jersey.
