Olympic Stadium adds wrinkle to MLS rivalry
Stade Olympique.
Former Major League Baseball stadium. Prospective World Cup venue. Refugee shelter.
And, you’ll recall, the site of the most shocking moment in Major League Soccer’s history.
The 2016 MLS Playoffs were marred by Montreal’s inability to paint lines properly, causing an epic delay in front of an international TV audience and jampacked stadium holding 61,000.
If the CFL has its “Fog Bowl,” this was Canadian club soccer’s most memorable fixture.
“Just a total miscalculation,” TFC coach Greg Vanney recalled ahead of today’s Big Owe return. “That one, for me, was unique in terms of MLS.”
It brought a new meaning to a common idiom. Watching paint dry became captivating.
“It unfortunately became a bit of an excuse for our poor start (that night),” Vanney explained.
It wasn’t just an excuse. The sight of stadium staff and Impact boss Joey Saputo hurrying around the field in a panic was surreal. Meanwhile, Vanney said his players struggled to come to grips with a bizarre interruption that lasted far longer than anyone expected.
“Guys were trying to put it aside,” Vanney said. “But I think routines are important.”
Some players undoubtedly struggled to maintain their focus, rhythm and intensity.
“It’s tough to lock in, engage and reset,” Vanney added. “There’s a finite amount of time you can stay in that space. Either way, it became a unique challenge, obviously.”
Here we are again, hours from another TFC-Impact fixture inside a venue that probably shouldn’t be in use considering the shoddy turf, hard surface and, as Vanney referred to them, “trap doors” hidden beneath the Olympic Stadium pitch.
“The ball just rolls and rolls and rolls — especially on the turf they have, which is very flat and matted down and inconsistent. In some places it’s hard. In some places it’s soft,” Vanney explained.
“There are areas where the ball won’t bounce and there are areas where the ball bounces high. Those, to me, are some of the issues going and playing on this turf.”
While today’s fixture isn’t a Cup final or MLS playoff meeting, the Impact enter not necessarily desperate, but certainly concerned after losing two to start the season. The question for Vanney is whether or not he wants to push certain players on short rest on this surface.
Is risking a guy like Jozy Altidore or Victor Vazquez worth it this early in the season with a huge Champions League semifinal looming ?
Or is time for a guy like Tosaint Ricketts to start in Altidore’s place?
Then again, Ricketts called Olympic Stadium “garbage” this week, according to TFC Report’s Oliver Platt.
That says everything.