LATE GOAL SEALS WIN
Impact beats Crew 2-1
It was a Halloween weekend with ghosts and goblins for Montreal sports fans.
It started with the Canadiens having a rare Saturday night off, and instead there were some little Carey Prices and P.K. Subbans ringing doorbells and saying “trick or treat” — or “joyeuse Halloween” — while dressed up like their favourite players.
Then Sunday morning we learned that Price would be out for at least a week with a lowerbody injury. Later in the day, it was revealed that Alouettes head coach/general manager Jim Popp didn’t make the trip to Edmonton for a crucial game against the Eskimos because of vertigo.
By mid-afternoon, the sky over Montreal looked like Armageddon was on the way, bringing rain and hail to parts of the city and possibly scaring Impact fans away from Saputo Stadium for a 7 p.m. Major League Soccer playoff game against the Columbus Crew.
But then a strange thing happened: the skies cleared and it turned out to be a beautiful evening for Nov. 1, with a temperature of 10 C at kickoff and no more rain.
It was even more beautiful for the 17,655 fans at Saputo Stadium after the Impact won 2-1 on goals by captain Patrice Bernier in the 37th minute — after Federico Higuain had given Columbus a 1-0 lead four minutes earlier — and Johan Venegas in the 77th minute.
Maybe the soccer gods — or the ghosts and goblins — owed the Impact one after the game was scheduled to start at the same time as the Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets at the Bell Centre because of the wishes of American TV.
The crowd was more than 3,000 short of a sellout, but was ready to party after Didier Drogba appeared to score for the Impact in the 15th minute. But the referee ruled Drogba had committed a foul while battling for control of the ball in the box, and the goal didn’t count.
In the 33rd minute, Columbus’s Justin Meram fired a cross into the Montreal box, where Drogba was back defending. The 6-foot-2 Ivorian got his head on the ball, but directed it to an unmarked Higuain, who put it past Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush.
In the two-game, aggregategoals Eastern Conference semifinal series, away goals really hurt since they are used as a tiebreaker if needed.
But Bernier — making his second consecutive playoff start after starting in only six of 34 regular-season games — scored his second goal in two games on a beautiful header off a corner kick by Marco Donadel.
Bernier came out of the game in the 73rd minute and his replacement, Venegas, scored the winner four minutes later.
“Pat’s been doing great. … He’s found his rhythm,” coach Mauro Biello said about his captain after the game. “He’s been training well. Another big goal tonight for us.”
As for Venegas scoring after coming on to take Bernier’s place, Biello said: “In the end, everybody needs to be ready to contribute to this team. Whether you’re on the bench or in the stands, when your number’s called you got to be ready. It’s about training and it’s about being focused all the time.”
Bernier, a Montreal native who grew up in Brossard, is turning out to be the feel-good story for the Impact after spending most of the early part of the season on the bench under former coach Frank Klopas.
When Biello took over after Klopas was fired at the end of August, he said Bernier would “become an option” moving forward.
“He’s someone that’s going to be very important for us in our run to the playoffs,” Biello said at the time. “He’s a leader, he’s the captain of the team, and we need him also in the dressing room and rallying the players and getting everybody on board. So he’ll have a big role to play in the next month and a half.”
Biello couldn’t have imagined just how big.
The Impact now heads to Columbus for Game 2 next Sunday with a good shot at advancing to the Eastern Conference final against either the New York Red Bulls or D.C. United. New York won the first game of that series 1-0 Sunday in Washington.
The Impact is in a much better situation than the Alouettes, who were officially eliminated from Canadian Football League playoff contention with Sunday’s 40-22 loss to the Eskimos. The Canadiens, meanwhile, showed they’re a scary hockey team even when Price isn’t the man wearing the mask, beating the Jets 5-1 with backup Mike Condon in goal.
Biello grew up in Montreal and played 19 seasons of pro soccer, including 16 with the Impact. He said he knew it was time to retire as a player in 2009 when his son Alessandro, who was three then, decided he wanted to dress up as a soccer player for Halloween. But instead of wanting to wear his father’s No. 20 Impact sweater, the boy wanted to wear the jersey of Biello’s teammate Joey Gjertsen.
Biello wasn’t wearing a costume Sunday night at Saputo Stadium, but he sure looked like a wizard on the sidelines.
All his moves worked and the soccer ghosts and goblins disappeared.