Henry off the mark as Impact beat Revolution in MLS opener
NEW YORK: Montreal Impact rallied to beat New England Revolution 2-1, giving Thierry Henry a winning start as a Major League Soccer (MLS) coach in their season opener on Sunday.
A stupendous late strike in the 80th minute by Maxi Urruti steered Impact to a win to fetch all three points for his team, who named former Arsenal great as their coach in November last year.
Urruti curled the winner with an aerial shot above the head of the New England goalkeeper Matt Turner from the edge of the box after Revolution substitute Wilfried Zahibo was disqualified with a video review.
Earlier, Teal Bunbury boek the dead lock to give New England 1-0 lead at the Olympic Stadium with a 13th-minute volley.
Romell Quioto header restored the parity for Impact in the 37th minute, netting the off Joel Waterman’s pass from a corner to make it 1-1.
Zahibo looked to have shot New England into the lead in the 73rd minute after bundling home a free kick from close range but the goal was later ruled out for a marginal offside.
Instead it was left to former Portland Timbers forward Urruti to clinch victory for Montreal, latching on to a long ball over the top to lob Turner as the New England goalkeeper advanced off his line.
“This is not perfect yet, far from it. Few teams reach that,” said Henry, who nevertheless said his side had made advances since getting past Costa Rica’s deportivo Saprissa in the CONCACAF Champions League.
“Many times (in the CCL games) we refused to play forward when we got the ball back to not fall into a counterattack or a one-on-one,” Henry said. “Today we did that.
“We tried to repeat that and then set up in their zone and get them to move from left to right to free up our fullback or our forwards in the middle.
“There were moments where we could’ve done more, but massively better on that front than what we did against Saprissa.” - Chicharito held in debut - Elsewhere on Saturday, Mexico international striker Javier Hernandez was unable to mark his MLS debut with a goal as the Los Angeles Galaxy were held to a 1-1 draw at Houston Dynamo.
Argentinian forward Cristian Pavon fired the Galaxy into an early lead with a superb shot from the edge of the area after 13 minutes.
But Houston fought back to level through Colombian striker Mauro Manotas shortly after half-time.
Hernandez, Mexico’s all-time leading goalscorer, was brought in from Sevilla by a Galaxy side eager to replace the star-power and scoring void left by the departure of Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
“Always the first game in the season is a little bit like a hangover of the preseason,” said Hernandez, who had no doubt the hangover would clear.
“It’s not how you start but how you end,” he said. “I’m quite confident things will improve.” Nashville SC’S inaugural MLS campaign opened with a 2-1 loss to Atlanta United.