Jun 12 Impact / Limniatis Get First Win In Montreal

A new night, a new coach, a new vision and perhaps a new streak in the making. This is what the impact had to be thinking on this, their 11th game of the season. The 10th place Impact, under new head coach John Limniatis after Head coach Nick De Santis stepped down earlier this week faced off against the 2nd place Charleston Battery in the final game of a home and away series. The Impact, you will recall, lost that first game 3-1 in a game that saw Montreal end their scoring drought at 552 minutes with Rocco Placentino getting the goal. The question now was, can the Impact find a way to score and win in Montreal?

The Impact had their work cut out for them as they had not had much luck beating this Charleston team in the past. This game was the third and last game between these two teams and the Impact lost the last two in South Carolina and the Impact is 7-9-0 lifetime against the battery. Charleston, on the other hand, is currently fighting for 1st place in the standings, just 2 points behind the Vancouver Whitecaps.  While the Impact had dominated most of their last 6-7 games with little result, they would knew they had to bring their best effort tonight in order to pull off the victory and take some pressure off themselves. In the second quarter, it all started to come together.

On yet another sold out night (13, 034), and the crowd wanted the Impact to know right from the get-go that they were here for them, from the announcing of the starting line-up to every good play their team made on the pitch.

If memory serves me correctly, Friday the 13th is notoriously associated with bad luck. Well, at the 10 minute mark the Impact got their first taste when Patrick Leduc rattled a vicious kick off the crossbar and into the net only to have it deemed a non goal by the referee.

Bad luck had nothing to do with the numerous and often lackadaisical defensive lapses that the Montreal Impact defenders committed in the first half. Were it not for Goalkeep Matt Jordan and his all-star calibre saves, the game could have already have been out of reach by the 16 minute mark when Matt made 2 back to back saves, including a save off the foot of Battery midfielder Ian Fuller who was left all alone inside the box with nothing between him and Jordan but their Jerseys. Moments later,Jordan, again, had to come up HUGE when after yet another impact give-away in their own end, M Chris Williams managed to cross it over to a waiting F Randi Patterson who kicked it penalty kick style to a diving Jordan who punched it away. It was no surprise to anyone attending when Jordan was later named player of the game.

No, this was not a game that we could look back and say that the Impact dominated from beginning to end. Yes, they did score a goal in the first half, but unlike hockey, it is not a video replay that decides if the goal is good or not, it is the on field referee and he was quite sure that it didn't go in.... It did, but I'll get over it. The Battery were having their way with the Impact like a dog with a fresh bone. The other offensive highlights for Montreal came in a flurry at the 39 minute mark when Rocco Placentino and Charles Gbeke connected twice in the span of 30 seconds with one attempt having Battery goalkeep Dusty Hudock beat, but Gbeke's header just missed wide. The Impact, perhaps still upset about the non goal call, seemed unorganized and tentative at times. They knew they would have to regroup in the second half if they wanted to get their first win at Stade Saputo tonight.

And they would get the spark they were looking for when, at the 69 minute mark, Wunderkind Rocco Placentino bent the ball right over Dusty Hudock after a nice pass from Adam Braz which brought the 13,000 strong at Stade Saputo to utter ecstasy. The Impact were not the same team as the one that showed up for the first half. That first goal in Saputo Stadium's history sent the Impact to a new level of emotion and pride. they played like a single unit and stood up for themselves if ever they felt they were being wronged. An example of this was when both Montreal defender Adam Braz and Battery scoring leader Randi Patterson were both assessed red cards for... fighting....for lack of a better term. Patterson and Braz bumped together inside the 18 and it escalated from there into a near field clearing brawl until calmer heads prevailed.

After witnessing the magnificent display of team effort, pure grit and determination which eventually got under the Battery's skin, it is boggling to think what this team will look like when their injured players (D Gabriel Gervais, M Leonardo Di Lorenzo, M Antonio Ribeiro and M David Testo as well as F Roberto Brown) are back in the line-up.

D Nevio Pizzolito played in his 219th game as member of the Impact when he replaced Pato Aguilera at the 74 minute mark of the game, tying him with Nick De Santis, however he still has a long way to go to catch team captain Mauro Biello who showed no signs that he was playing his 319th.

The Impact scored their 299th goal at home in its history tonight and it was a long time coming. Now that the proverbial gorillas are off their backs, something tells me we just might see that 300th on June 22nd when the Carolina RailHawks visit Montreal. It is to note that before the Impact faces off against Carolina, they will play the Whitecaps here in Montreal on the 17th in game 1 of 2 in the qualifying rounds of the CONCACAF Champions League.

Tags: charleston battery \ first \ game \ get \ impact \ limniatis \ montreal \ result \ score \ soccer \ USL \ win