Feb 24 CONCACAF - Montreal Impact Impress 55, 571 Fans en Route to 2-0 Victory over Club Santos Laguna

The Montreal Impact played their home game of the CONCACAF Champions League quarterfinal series against Mexican Club Santos Laguna, at Olympic Stadium tonight in front of 55,571 boisterous fans. The crowd, who filed in well before the first touch left no doubt as to who they were rooting for, as the majority all showed up wearing different shades of blue. With bookend goals at the beginning and end of the contest, the Impact continued their CONCACAF success and head on to Mexico with a 2 goal aggregate cushion. 

It would only take 4 minutes and 40 seconds into the game for the 55,571 in attendance to rise to a deafening roar when Roberto Brown and Eduardo Sebrango connected on a give and go with newly acquired Sebrango putting the ball cleanly past Oswaldo Sanchez from just outside the box. After a few chances including an over kicked ball by Mexico's Christian Benitez due to lapses in Montreal's defence, the Impact bore down and sealed the back end, giving very little to the Mexican forwards. Montreal would dictat the play for the remainder of the half as over 55,000 people formed a prolonged wave and broke out in a chorus of "Olé-Olés". Roberto Brown, who had been rather rambunctious during this half, was assessed a yellow card at the 45th minute for shoving a Mexican defender to the ground.

Only moments into the beginning of the second half, Benitez was able to break in behind the Montreal defenders, forcing Matt Jordan to make a nifty save. Mexico, the much more aggressive team, came on strong and made Montreal look like they were standing still at times. Benitez would soon get a vicious kick off at the 18, but Jordan would catch that one, and in an ensuing free kick by Pedro Quinonez, Jordan had to dive quickly to his left in order to keep Montreal in the lead. Joey Gjertsen made a great defensive play at the 65th minute blocking a free kick, point blank, breaking up a potentially dangerous play. 

And in the 77th minute, complete pandemonium would ensue after a blunder and communication gap on the Mexican squad's side led to Roberto Brown and Eduardo Sebrango connecting again with Sebrango heading his second of the game into an empty net. It would take the crowd several minutes to settle down, only to have them roar again with the goal's announcement.

Montreal would eventually put some fresh legs on the pitch, replacing Rocco Placentino with Stephen deRoux and Roberto Brown with Felix Brillant at different points in the game. Captain Mauro Biello, Simon Gatti and Stefano Pesoli would have to watch from the sidelines as they were all nursing different injuries.  Brillant and his fresh legs would be assessed a yellow card just as extra time was about to be called. During the extra time and with every Montreal player transforming into a defender, there was nothing Mexico could do to break through to Matt Jordan, who recorded his 5th shutout of the CONCACAF Championships thus far, much to the elation of the thousands of thoroughly satisfied fans in attendance.

During the post game press conference, Mexico's coach Daniel Guzman, would refuse to give any credit to the Impact team, citing the artificial turf and his teams inability to capitalize on their chances for the loss. Coach Limniatis as well as Eduardo Sebrango, Cedric Joqueviel and Sandro Grande, thanked the crowd for their support and remained cautiously optimistic, leading Limniatis to warn "We haven't won anything yet. This is the beginning. We had a set plan and this was the first half of two halves" Grande, when asked about the turf issue said "We had to play on the turf just like they did." but he would also later go on to say, even though he preferred not playing on artificial turf himself, that "if it brings out 55,000 fans every game, let's play on artificial turf then!"

This game was a long time coming that saw the Impact commence their CONCACAF journey at the beginning of their 2008 season and here they played in game one of an aggregate home and away series, only weeks away from their 2009 USL season opener.

The Impact had secured their spot in the quarterfinals by first winning the Nutrilite Canadian Championship by eliminating both Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps in round robin play. The then finished the CONCACAF group phase in second place in Group C, with a record of three wins, one loss and two ties. In that stage, the Impact played against Joe Public FC (Trinidad & Tobago), CD Olimpia (Honduras) and Atlante FC (Mexico).

Club Santos Laguna's road was slightly similar in that they finished the group phase (Group D) in first place with a record of three wins, two losses and a tie. 

The second and decisive game of this home-a nd away aggregate goal series will be played Thursday, March 5, in Torreón, Mexico, however with the 2 goal cushion, even if Montreal doesn't score a goal, Mexico will have to score 3 in order to defeat Montreal and move on to the semi finals.

Tags: Club Santos Laguna \ concacaf \ Eduardo Sobrango \ February 25th 2009 \ Matt Jordan \ Montreal Impact \ quarterfinal \ Roberto Brown