Montreal sent packing from Canadian finals
VANCOUVER — While the Montreal Impact would have loved a chance to defend their Canadian Championship, coach Thierry Henry says what the club really wanted on Wednesday was points in the Major League Soccer standings.
Instead, the team dropped a 3-1 decision to the Vancouver Whitecaps.
“We wanted three points for the league. I’ve been saying since the beginning, we wanted three points for the league. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen,” he said.
Montreal needed a win in order to top the table in the round-robin portion of the tournament. The loss means Toronto FC has secured first place instead.
The Impact (5-5-1) went down a man in the 37th minute Wednesday after Rudy Camacho was given a red card for violent conduct.
The French defender got tangled up with Vancouver’s Cristian Dajome in the box. There was no call on the play, but Camacho stayed down on the field for several seconds.
Whitecaps striker Fredy Montero went to help him to his feet but, instead of taking his hand, Camacho punched Montero in the knee, producing a sound that echoed through the nearly empty stadium.
“It had a big impact on the game,” Henry said. “Once again, we’re going to learn, hopefully quicker than this, sooner rather than later as they say in English. But I like to stay with the positive. What you saw, obviously, was a massive negative. But I like to talk about it internally.”
Vancouver (4-7-0) was awarded a penalty kick, which saw Montero put a low ball in the bottom right corner of the Montreal net for his first goal of the season.
He added a second goal in the 78th minute, collecting a drop pass from Leonard Owusu and sending a rocket past Impact goalkeeper Clement Diop.
It was Montero’s first start of the season and just his second game since the MLS paused for the COVID-19 pandemic back in March.
“He deserved even the hat trick,” said Vancouver coach Marc Dos Santos. “He impacted with the ball, he impacted the in chances created, he impacted the game in the runs in the box. He impacted. And he has to be proud of that and it’s well done for him.”
Dajome also scored for the ‘Caps, and Thomas Hasal had three saves for the home team. Romell Quioto scored for the Impact.