The adventure of the Montreal Impact at the tournament of revival of the MLS came to an end in the eighth-finals, against the Orlando City SC.
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July 25, 2020
Updated on July 26, 2020 0h09
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The Montreal Impact eliminated after a setback against Orlando
The canadian Press
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — 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 on Saturday night at the Complex ESPN Walt Disney World.
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.
“In the first half, Orlando came out very, very strong. We did not win our duels, it was always a time delay on the players of Orlando than it is to put pressure, either to win a race”, analysed and Samuel Piette.
“It is sure that it’s played on the team when you’re not able to win your duels, controlling a bit the game, something that we had done well so far, especially during the last two games against Toronto, and D. C. this is what we wanted to do today, and it has not been able to. We have not been able to string together five passes on. It is sure that mentally, it is very difficult when you’re not able to do that,” added the midfielder, montreal.
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.
Despite the defeat and the elimination of its players, Henry has had good things to say about them.
“We were able to save what there was to save them, that is to say, back in the “playoffs”. And after, of course, there are things to be ignored. But the balance for me, I am proud of my players. Come here, do what you have done, be behind a lot of teams at the level of the workout. Everyone was a bit in the same state, but I’m forced to be there by protecting my players. They have given the maximum, it was not enough today. We will continue to work and move forward.”
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.
“It was the only thing positive of the first half, it was 0-0”, summarized the head coach of the Impact during his press conference after the match.
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. She belonged to 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.
“I don’t want to comment on the goal because I have to see the recovery. I think it is an individual error of our team, and it’s very sad,” commented the defender Jukka Raitala.
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THE MLS PROVIDES FOR A RECOVERY OF THE REGULAR SEASON IN AUGUST
The MLS, which has partially resumed under a format unique on July 8, hopes to boost its regular season at the end of August, five months after its discontinuation, said Friday toAFP the technical director of the football League in north america, Alfonso Mondelo.
Suspended because of the outbreak of coronavirus after only two days in mid-march, the MLS has taken on the 8 July in a format of a new tournament with pool matches and then single-elimination games, which begin on Saturday, in the bubble of Disney World in Orlando Florida.
If the final of this tournament, “MLS is back” is scheduled for 11 August, the organizers hope to then resume the season at the end of the month of August with a program tightened 20-23 games per team, compared to 34 originally planned.
“The idea is to start at the end of August (…) so as to reach the month of November for the series and for the final of the MLS can take place during the second week of December,” said Alfonso Mondelo.
“The idea is that there will be between 15 and 18 [matches per team] in addition to here in October to reach between 20 and 23 days in the regular season, and then be able to play a few matches of series”, has he said, knowing that some matches of the tournament in Florida were counted for the regular season.
“We do not take any risks, the priority is the safety of the players and the general public,” said Mondelo, who said working in relationship with the different States and Centres for the prevention and control of diseases (CDC).
The MLS should find a way to schedule additional matches to Dallas and Nashville, who had withdrawn from the tournament due to the high number of cases of COVID-19 in these teams. AFP
