Just two for one’s viewing pleasure this round; up first, Jack McInerney, courtesy of a lovely long pass from right-back Hassoun Camara:
And second, from that same match, Luis Silva, who took advantage of the patch of the space presented to him with this dipping effort from distance:
On to the results…
Results in Brief
Montreal 2 – DC 4
The evening’s first match saw Eastern Conference foes Montreal and DC meet for the second time this season. Their first encounter back in May, ended all square with Jack McInerney and Eddie Johnson exchanging goals in the second half.
It took mere seconds for the first incident to take place, when Felipe hacked down Fabian Espindola straight from the kickoff. Espindola would get his revenge in more ways than one – returning the favour with a sneaky off-the-ball clip, for which was booked in the 33rd minute, but not before making the Impact pay where it counts.
After just six minutes, Espindola laid a little ball down the right-side of the box for Luis Silva’s run, which his strike partner tidily finished with a right-footer under Montreal keeper, Troy Perkins.
McInerney would level six minutes later, latching onto a lovely, long through-ball from Hassoun Camara, to finish across Andrew Dykstra and the Impact would take the lead in the 21st minute, when Andres Romero picked the pocket of Sean Franklin, then cut back inside on the recovering defender to sneak a left-footer over the line through a crowd – it was his third in as many league matches.
DC would respond two minutes on, when Nick DeLeon notched his first of the season, getting on the end of a low, left-sided cross from Espindola with a darting run in front of Karl Ouimette.
Espindola was not yet done, registering his third assist of the night on Luis Silva’s second goal – a cracking, right-footed strike from distance that dipped over the outstretched arm of Perkins, when Silva was allowed far too much space to run towards goal in the 39th minute.
Silva would complete his hat-trick in first half stoppage-time with a 49th minute penalty kick after Camara was adjudged to have pulled down Steve Birnbaum on an Espindola free-kick into the area. Silva’s strong right-footer to the keeper’s right, after sending Perkins sprawling to his left, gave the Montreal keeper little hope of denying the well-struck effort.
Montreal would win a spot kick of their own in the 75th minute when Davy Arnaud was called for a handball, as Marco Di Vaio attempted to control with a juggle in the DC box. Patrice Bernier, who had a perfect record of ten goals from ten attempts, missed his first chance of the season, dooming any hopes of a comeback.
Frank Klopas, who had hoped that recent victories over New England in the league and the Canadian Championship over Toronto would spur his side to a rejuvenation as they head into the break, was left to rue a dropped opportunity. Instead they sit firmly at the bottom of the Eastern Conference and league on ten points from thirteen matches, though with games in hand on those above.
Ben Olsen’s DC, on the other hand, after a woeful 2013, have nearly doubled their output and enter the rest on top of the East with 25 points from fifteen matches.
Portland 2 – Dallas 2
The other match of the evening pitted a pair of Western foes against one another, each in desperate need of a chance to make up ground on those ahead of them in the standings. It was their second encounter of the season as well, having also played a 1-1 draw back in March.
Portland, riding high off a weekend win at Salt Lake, endured an eight-match winless start, but have climbed up the table in recent weeks. Dallas suffered an eight-match winless run of their own after a blinding start to the campaign, and were hoping to build on a strong 3-2 win over Colorado on Saturday.
The match began like a shot with Dallas drawing a pair of goal-line interventions from the Timbers inside the first three minutes, when Fabian Castillo’s low shot was pushed into a dangerous area by Donovan Ricketts and Adam Moffat’s follow-up effort struck the post, while Tesho Akindele’s attempt was cleared off the line by Jorge Villafana.
In the tenth minute, the hosts had the ball in the back of the net, only for the assistant referee’s flag to deny them the go-ahead from Rawshaun McKenzie, after Will Johnson’s header was saved by Raul Fernandez, prompting the flag to be raised.
It was Dallas who would strike first, breaking the deadlock in the 27th minute when Blas Perez chipped a ball behind the Timbers defenses from the right-flank and Castillo latched onto it, finishing low across Ricketts with a right-footer, after controlling the service off his chest.
Dallas would double that advantage before half-time. Akindele collected the ball deep in his own half, bore down the right-flank, skipping over challenges, before pulling back a pass to the high near-post. Castillo cleverly dummied the rolling ball, leaving it to Blas Perez with a better angle from the top of the box for a powerful right-footer into the far-side of goal.
Come the second half, the Timbers would press for a path back into the match, while Dallas gradually sat deeper and deeper in a vain attempt to soak up the pressure.
The home side would be offered a lifeline in the 79th minute, when Je-Vaughan Watson lunged in on Fanendo Adi, taking down the big striker and prompting the referee to point to the spot. Captain Will Johnson would convert the penalty kick, his second in as many matches, after holding off Gaston Fernandez, who desperately wanted to take the spot kick himself.
With Portland smelling blood, Dallas dropped even deeper and were made to pay with a seven minute stretch of madness that saw two red cards – Moises Hernandez sent off for a wild lunge on Danny O’Rourke in the 87th minute (no stranger to lunges himself) who made the most of the contact, and Blas Perez, dismissed with a second booking within two minutes, garnering a straight-red for an apparent stomp on Pa Modou Kah in the 92nd after picking up a yellow card earlier.
Kah would avenge Perez’ error two minutes later when Max Urruti put a ball into the Dallas box, which the big defender was able to bring down and poke into the top right-corner with his right boot in the final minute of stoppage-time, earning his side a hard-fought, if fortuitous, point.
Caleb Porter will be content to enter the break having lost just once in their last nine matches, but will be perturbed by Portland’s propensity to concede early and often.
Dallas’ Oscar Pareja was no doubt dismayed by losing two points at the death, though whether he blamed his players, or the officials, who sent off two and called a penalty, will likely be a factor in how he views the World Cup break.
CanCon
Despite the limited action there were plenty of Canadians on the pitch midweek, with Will Johnson and Tesho Akindele squaring off in Portland, while a quartet of Canadians – Patrice Bernier, Karl Ouimette, Wandrille Lefevre, and Issey Nakajima-Farran - started for Montreal and a fifth, Maxim Tissot, joined from the bench.
Check in tomorrow to see how they did in the extended Canadian Content section, out midday.
Overheard
Mere days after this very review commented that Philadelphia “can regroup, with manager, John Hackworth, safe in the knowledge that they have found their scoring boots” Hackworth was removed from his head coaching position, roughly two seasons after having taken up the post - he was announced on an interim basis on June 13, 2012. He became the first manager to suffer the axe this season.
The rationale?
According to club CEO, Nick Sakiewicz, "We are a very ambitious club and although we are just in our fifth season we expect to win and be in the top tier of MLS. Today we will begin a serious global search for a team manager who will help guide us to our goal of competing to win the MLS Cup. Philadelphia is a major market and we expect that there will be significant interest from a wide variety of qualified candidates to become Philadelphia Union’s team manager."
He continued, "Our great fans, partners and community deserve a winning team and we will be doing everything in our power to win. We appreciate the work, time and efforts John Hackworth put into building the club and his influence on our growing youth academy. He is a first class person and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”
Later, Sakiewicz reflected, “I never in my dreams would have thought that I would have done what I did today. But that’s soccer. That’s professional sports. If I had just slogged along until the end of the season, I wouldn’t be doing my job to the fans. I wouldn’t be doing my job for the sponsors and all of my partners. You’ve got to win.”
Before adding, about potential candidates, “I haven’t even checked my iPhone, but the resumes are flooding in I’m being told. There’s a lot of interest in coaching in MLS overseas – big coaches. You guys will hear some big names.”
Technical director and Assistant Coach, Rob Vartughian, was also relieved of his duties.
Hackworth will be replaced by Assistant Coach, Jim Curtain on an interim basis for the time being. He commented the following in his introductory press conference, giving some foresight into what he plans to implement, “Good teams win 1-0 games in this league. The teams that do that at the end of the year are the teams that are toward the top of the table – the Kansas Citys, the Salt Lakes. They grind out 1-0 results and they’re good in both boxes.”
Stadium News
David Beckham’s Miami machinations suffered a blow, sending them back to the drawing board, when their second site, a downtown stadium, was declined by the city. Don Garber reiterated, “We cannot go to Miami unless we have not just a viable, but a very, very strong downtown location for a city that will be provided with a Major League Soccer franchise that can privately finance a stadium; to do it with one of the soccer world’s most important and significant icons and to make a commitment to make it one of the better teams, or most important teams, in North America."
In other stadium news, DC United released fresh renderings of their proposed site – it’s pretty awesome.
US Open Cup
The Fourth Round of the 2014 US Open Cup is underway with MLS sides entering the fray. Houston and San Jose moved on midweek with a 1-0 win over the Laredo Heat and a 2-1 result over Sacramento, respectively.
But come Saturday the next three MLS participants were upset with Chivas falling 3-2 on penalty kicks after drawing the Carolina RailHawks, Salt Lake getting bounced 2-1 at Atlanta and New York suffering a 3-0 defeat at the hands of local rivals, the New York Cosmos – that had to hurt.
The round continues on Tuesday and Wednesday, with another eleven MLS clubs involved in cup action.
Tuesday: Philadelphia-Harrisburg; Rochester-DC; Columbus-Indy Eleven; Dallas-San Antonio; Colorado-Orlando City; Portland-Orlando City U23. Wednesday: Richmond-New England; Chicago-Pittsburgh; Kansas City-Minnesota; Seattle-PSA Elite; Arizona-Los Angeles.
Controversy
Several debatable moments, despite the limited action:
Did DC deserve a penalty kick from this play in Montreal? Apparently for Hassoun Camara bringing down Steve Birnbaum?
And what about the call in Dallas, that gave Portland a way back into their match after trailing by two? Fanendo Adi sure went down softly on the challenge from Je-Vaughan Watson.
Then there was the pair of red cards to Dallas, first Moises Hernandez and then Blas Perez? Both were probably correct with the first the harsher of the two decisions.
Upcoming Fixtures
The league will return on June 25th with a single midweek match before resuming in earnest the following weekend:
Wednesday: Vancouver-Montreal. Friday: New York-Toronto; Portland-Kansas City. Saturday: DC-Seattle; New England-Philadelphia; Columbus-Dallas; Colorado-Vancouver; San Jose-Los Angeles; Chivas-Salt Lake. Sunday: Montreal-Houston.
All video and quotes courtesy of MLSsoccer.com
Each week James takes a look at the league as a whole.
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