The funny thing is, I thought about going home at halftime.
The Montreal Impact were up 2-1 at Santos Laguna, 4-1 aggregate, with two sweetly finished away goals ensuring that as long as they didn’t get outscored by four in the second half, they were on to the CONCACAF Champions League semifinals home-free.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
My corner of the bar was turning into a pitched verbal battle over the many and brain-defying ways the Canadian soccer bureaucracy artificially limits development of the depressingly scarce trickle of players who might actually help our national teams someday. It was batteringly loud, and I’ve spent way too much time stranded on the side of that road.
But I stayed. This night was going to be about clean, soaring victory.
Tiny USL-1 Montreal was three opponents away from a game with the winner of either the Copa Libertadores or the UEFA Champions Cup. The only way they could grilch it was a four-goal fold-up, and with an inspired Matt Jordan tending the Impact goal, that just wasn’t ever going to happen.
Except, of course, it did.
After a thrillingly improbable romp through the CONCACAF Champions League, the plucky, unkillable Impact were finally – and brutally – exposed. Santos Laguna did, in fact, batter home four second half goals – the last two in stoppage time, for maximum pain and drama.
Throughout the first half, the Impact defended bravely, efficiently and well. They got their chances, too, with Roberto Brown and Eduardo Sebrango scoring to all-but-eliminate the fleet-footed home-standing Mexicans.
It was right about midnight, back in Montreal, when the Impact’s golden Cinderella carriage crashed and burned in the pumpkin patch.
Throughout the last half hour, the seven-time defending Voyageurs Cup champs could scarcely get the ball out of their own six-yard box. Santos scored, then scored again.
By rights, the Impact could easily have been killed off even before the fatal final four minutes of stoppage time. One Santos player had the ball, all alone, six yards out, and opted to pass. Another had his smoking, goalie-proof slot bomb smack a startled teammate on the butt. Somewhere in there, as well, a fatal curving outside slicer walloped the Montreal goalpost.
The Impact had nothing left. No running – and above all, no clearance. This team, throughout this amazing campaign, had consistently been able to get the ball over centre and do dangerous things with it. Now they were flailing just to find each other with hit-and-hope pop jobs deep in their own territory.
I haven’t seen a finish like that since Manchester United stole the Champions Cup from Bayern Munich with two stoppage-time markers in 1999. And they were never four goals down.
Such is the sport we love, people. The Impact couldn’t seal the deal, and Santos Laguna hung in there long enough to punish them for it. Survival of the footballing fittest – but wasn’t it a soaring run?
For Montreal, it could be pumpkin time for a long, lousy while.
That comprehensive collapse cost them another huge home date at the Olympic Stadium, and their grip on the Canadian crown will soon be severely tested by a rebuilt, revved-up Toronto FC, not even to begin to mention the worthy USL-1 champion Vancouver Whitecaps.
The Impact’s low-balling MLS expansion bluff has been called. Unless owner Joey Saputo realizes the game just changed unalterably, Montreal could remain a minor-league soccer city forever.
So much, turning on one rancid half of football. It was wrenching in real-time – and the long-term consequences are circling like hawks over a highway.
Too much to take in, really. This story will be unfolding – and unravelling – for years.
For now, a simple thank you.
Merci, Montreal, for doing all of Canadian soccer proud. You made a lot of friends, and ticked off a lot of people in Toronto. It was thrilling, unprecedented – and fun.
I double-dog dare you to do that again!
Onward!