MONTREAL—The Montreal Impact ran off five straight wins and still, they couldn’t gain enough ground to secure a playoff spot. After a heart-breaking 17 minutes against Columbus, the playoffs seem next to impossible.
“The game seemed like it was on our terms, but then the set-piece goal changed things,” said Coach Jesse Marsch of the 2-1 loss against the Columbus Crew on Sept. 1. “We gave it away in the end.
“It doesn’t change anything about our belief in ourselves or our confidence. It’s one we let slip and it motivates us right now to make sure we are ready for the next one.”
The Major League Soccer scheduling gods have given the Impact a break, their next game is on Sept. 15 in Chicago—a long vacation to regroup.
“We need that to focus on what we want to do,” said Impact defender Hassoun Camara. “We want to go in the series, it’s going to be important for us to work hard every day. We have a good team.”
After a number of losses early in the season, the math is not in the Impact’s favour.
“We want to go out and win as many games as we need,” said Impact Captain Davy Arnaud. “We’ve seen that we are capable of winning five games in a row, so I can’t see why we couldn’t do that again. I don’t see why we would need to do that to get into the playoffs, but who knows.”
