Lions score late to tie Montreal
Spector late header salvages point after bumpy second half
A week full of ups and downs ended in the same way for Orlando City.
The Lions (7-5-4, 25 points) started off Saturday night’s match with an eighth-minute goal and lost a lead twice before scoring in the 94th minute to pull out a 3-3 draw at home against the Montreal Impact (4-4-6, 18 points).
“Another night of positives and negatives,” Orlando City coach Jason Kreis said. “Still haven’t put together a complete performance this season. Some really big positives in how we played in the first 45 minutes, what we were doing with the ball, the number of chances we created. The negatives, obviously, are that I thought we gave them all three goals.”
Orlando City played without leading goal-scorer Cyle Larin, who is suspended due to a DUI charge, but quickly showed it could score goals in his absence.
Giles Barnes, starting in place of Larin, received the ball in Montreal territory on the left side. He tapped it forward to Kaká. The team captain hustled to the end line and crossed the ball to Matias Pérez García, who scored his first goal with the club and gave the Lions a 1-0 lead in front of an announced sellout crowd of 25,527.
“It was a great joy for me,” Pérez García said through a translator. “Also, scoring early helped me to feel more confident the rest of the game and perform even better.”
Replays of the goal showed Kaká and the ball were out of bounds before the assisting pass,