Photo: John Raoux Associated Press
The adventure of the Montreal Impact at the tournament of revival of the MLS came to an end in the eighth-final after a defeat of 1-0 against Orlando City SC.
Tesho Akindele scored the lone goal of the match in the 60th minute, capitalizing on a defensive error of the Impact deep in its territory.
After two performances the most encouraging against Toronto FC and D. C. United, the Impact has more resembled the team that had launched the tournament on July 9 against the Revolution in New England, experiencing a miserable first half.
After the goal by Akindele and a couple of changes from the head coach Thierry Henry, the Impact has displayed a little more passion in the last 15 minutes of regulation time.
Romell Quioto has particular got a chance to quality to the 80th minute, but his deflection of the head has just missed the net to the goalkeeper Pedro Gallese. Six minutes of stoppage time have not helped the Impact to extend his stay in Florida.
Thanks to his win, Orlando will face, the 31st July, the winner of the duel between the Seattle Sounders and the Los Angeles FC. This match will take place on Monday, at the end of the evening.
Half-way
On Thursday, Thierry Henry had warned that to avoid to suffer from the heat, it would be important to control the ball. In the first half, the message was perfectly captured… By the players of Orlando.
The “premises” are taxed from the first moments of the match, taking control of the ball and the territory, exploiting particularly the defense side of montreal.
With more expediency and accuracy, Orlando would have easily been able to give an advance of two or three goals after 45 minutes of play.
Alone, Jhegson Mendez has got three opportunities-quality and believe have broken the tie of 0-0 during the 45th minute. The Impact is quite well drawn, as one of the officials ruled that Akindele was out of the game.
Some seven minutes earlier, Mendez had managed the only shot in the frame of his team during the first half. Clément Diop has found a way to stop it, even if it was stretched at full length on the lawn.
On his side, the Impact has not had a single real chance to score. It belonged to Samuel Piette, who has diverted from the head center Quioto in the hands of Gallese during the 26th minute of the game.
Without being as dominant as during the first half of the game, Orlando has finally managed to open the scoring when Akindele took advantage of a bad reaction from defender Rod Fanni to eventually push the ball in an open net wide open.
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