MONTREAL - It was all pine, no twine for the Impact Saturday as their only solid scoring opportunity – a Justin Mapp drive – bounced off the crossbar in a scoreless home draw against Dallas FC in front of a sell-out crowd of over 20,000 spectators Saturday night.
The high-scoring Impact have been shut out for their second straight tilt and it didn’t help that top-scorer Marco Di Vaio missed the game for family reasons. He was replaced by fellow Italian Daniele Paponi as lone striker, whose best chance came in the third minute when his shot was deflected out of bounds.
The bloodless duel - which saw much of the play stuck around the middle of the field - was almost tilted in favour of the visitors as Kenney Cooper aimed a dangerous header towards the Impact goal in the 36th minute, but his shot was caught by keeper Troy Perkins.
In addition to his near goal in the 26th minute, Mapp was also stopped on a chip shot in the 73rd minute and in the 78th minute, Mapp centred a dangerous pass to Jeb Brovsky, whose left-footer was saved by Dallas’ alert netminder Raul Fenandez.
“It’s one of those nights where we just couldn’t seem to find the back of net,” Justin Mapp told the team's website. “We have a veteran team with a lot of experienced guys so I knew we would rebound well from last week’s performance.”
Montreal outshot Dallas 15-6, including a 4-2 shot on goal advantage, the Impact also controled the ball 62 percent of the time.
The Impact will be off until next Saturday when they host the Sporting Kansas City at Saputo Stadium.
