Impact’s playoff hopes ride on win over Revs, stumble from Columbus
The task for the Impact this weekend is simple — they must win their final regular-season game. Even then, it might not be enough to qualify for the Major League Soccer playoffs.
However, if Montreal can defeat New England Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium, the team at least will be able to salvage some pride should it fail to reach postseason play.
“We can look at the body of work in the last third of the season,” defender Daniel Lovitz said Thursday after the team’s training session at Centre Nutrilait. “We wouldn’t be content, but would hold our heads high and understand we were able to transform ourselves as a team and able to accomplish a lot of great results in a lot of tough and important games, minus a few setbacks.
“Everyone would like to end the season, whenever that is, on a positive note,” he added. “We have to win. I really don’t think there’s much else for us to focus on.”
The Impact needs a win over the Revolution on the road Sunday (4:30 p.m., TVA Sports, CJAD Radio 800) and hope at the same time that Columbus — which sits sixth in the Eastern Conference and holds the final playoff spot — does no better than a draw at home against Minnesota.
The Impact (14-15-4) have only three victories and two draws in 16 road games. That includes an embarrassing 4-0 defeat at New England on April 6 — a game in which Saphir Taïder received a red card in the 13th minute and the visitors surrendered a penalty-kick goal.
New England (9-13-11) is eighth in the conference and has been eliminated from the playoffs, although the team’s a respectable 7-4-5 at home.
But Montreal could be hardpressed in its hopes of gaining a boost from Minnesota (11-19-3), which is on a three-game losing streak and has only one win and two draws on the road. Minnesota also hasn’t won as the visiting squad since March 10.
Columbus (13-11-9) has been tough to beat on its home pitch, with 10 wins and four draws in 16 games. However, the Crew is on a two-game losing streak, both defeats coming on the road.
“It’s about us. We have to go there. The three points are there for the taking,” Lovitz said. “We don’t expect them to lay down by any means.”
The Impact’s loss at Foxborough, Mass., in April was the first of four consecutive defeats, a span during which the club surrendered 16 goals and served as a barometer of how the players were struggling under new head coach Rémi Garde.
“We learned a lot about each other,” Samuel Piette said. “I think the coaching staff as well learned a lot from us. They understood how we wanted to play, the style of play we need to adapt.”
Things have drastically improved for Montreal since midJune, the club sporting a 10-4-4 record over that span.
“In May, if you would have told us we’d be in this position in the last week of the season, we would have taken it, absolutely,” Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush said. “At the same time, you’d like to control your own destiny. But it has been out of our hands for a few weeks.”
Since a crucial 5-0 loss at D.C. United at the end of September, Montreal has won its last two games, both at home, shutting out Columbus and Toronto.
In defeating the Reds, Bush said he appreciated the fact no updates of other matches were provided at Saputo Stadium. Similarly this Sunday, which the league has dubbed Decision Day, all teams will play at the same time in an effort to balance the tables. Impact players, therefore, likely won’t know their fate until they get to the dressing room after the match.
“Even when we won (last Sunday against Toronto) ... I assumed, because they weren’t showing the scores, they weren’t good for us. I thought we got knocked out,” Bush said. “We focused on what we needed to do.”
And it will be the same on Sunday, Garde confident his team will play with blinders on and focus exclusively on their task.
“I think the group currently is positive and looking forward to that game,” he said.
But Garde made it clear he doesn’t believe in moral victories, intimating nothing short of a playoff appearance will suffice.
“Success in football is results,” he said this week. “This isn’t the time to assess our season.”