MONTREAL – It was better than their midweek performance, but the Montreal Impact aren’t quite satisfied.
After going down 3-1 at Toronto FC on Wednesday, the Impact improved this Saturday, settling for a 2-2 draw at rainy PPL Park against the Philadelphia Union. They scratched and clawed, conceding the first goal within eight minutes and going down a man before taking the lead, relinquishing it and drawing a foul that left the Union with a man down as well.
Still, the impression in the locker room wasn’t so much that Montreal had gained a precious road point; it was that they’d lost two.
“The positive, for me, is two games on the road and, obviously, not losing two games,” head coach Frank Klopas told reporters postgame. “That’s one thing we’ve talked about: never losing two games in a row. We got one point, but I definitely felt that we dropped points, because we played well enough to win.”
Montreal know that they can’t afford to slip into a losing streak. They only had two such streaks last season, but one lasted seven games.
The other good news for Montreal was Ignacio Piatti, who raised the bar for his away performances going forward. Though he missed a sitter in the 78th minute, Piatti scored an excellent solo effort – his first of the season away from home in league play – that tied the game.
Jack McInerney gave Montreal the lead in the second half only to see Maurice Edu equalize six minutes later.
“The team depends on us to score goals,” McInerney said. “We’ve scored a good amount of goals this year. Going on the road, you want to lock down the defense, keep a shutout. Again, we gave up too many goals on the road. At the end of the day, that cost us some points. We’ll take the point, but we need to build on it.”
McInerney craved a goal against the Union, who traded him away for Andrew Wenger in early April 2014. Loud booing greeted him when he replaced Dominic Oduro at the hour mark, which made his goal 10 minutes later - and 10-v-11, at that, since Patrice Bernier had seen red three minutes earlier - all the sweeter.
“It’s just standard Philly fans,” McInerney said. “They’re going to boo no matter what. I just use it as motivation, and go out there and put in hard work. If you’re on their team and put in the hard work, they’ll appreciate it. That’s just what I tried to do for my team today.”
Olivier Tremblay covers the Montreal Impact for MLSsoccer.com.
