Aug 09 Montreal Impact Defeat Minnesota Thunder 1-0, Leapfrog to 6th Place

A lot was at stake in tonight's game against the Thunder. With a win, the Impact would break a 3 year spell of going winless against their rivals from Minnesota and in the process, they could climb out of 8th place and into 6th in the USL Division 1 standings.

A dominating performance throughout most of the game resulted in a goal from Roberto Brown at the 51st minute and some good defending to shut down the Thunder sealed the 1-0 win in front of 11,208 boisterous fans at Saputo Stadium.

The play was started by Rocco Placentino, who got the ball to Pierre-Rudolph Mayard who fired a low shot that was stopped by Thunder 'keeper Nicolas Platter, but Brown jumped on the rebound with a header, scoring his 5th goal of the season. The Impact, until this point had already had at the very least, 7 good chances that Platter and his defenders had to be sharp on or the score could have easily been much greater than this before the 1st half was over.

 The Impact dominated 16-4 in shots on goal and Montreal 'keeper Srdjan Djekanovic, who played the last six regular season games notonly played well in goal, but towards the last moments of the game when the Thunder was trying to mount a comeback, Djekanovic got frisky and acted as an extra defender, coming way out to around the 45 yard mark in a miscommunication between he and Cédric Jocqueviel, to play a ball in order to prevent a Thunder play from forming at midfield.

Among the many great opportunities the Impact created during the game, in the 21st minute, after beating Thunder defender Chris Clements with his speed, midfielder Pierre-Rudolph Mayard rifled a powerful shot from inside the box that rang off the crossbar.

Both Brown and defender Nevio Pizzolitto received yellow cards during the game, making this their 5th of the season, meaning they will have to each serve 1 game suspensions going forward.

They will be most missed in their next game when they face off against against the powerful Portland Timbers at Saputo Stadium  on Wednesday (7:30 pm, CKAC Sports, THE TEAM 990, USLlive.com). Montreal will definitely have their work cut out for them in their quest to climp the USL standings as the Timbers have only lost once in 21 matches this season.

pic by photos pépé

Tags: game \ minnesota thunder \ Montreal Impact \ result \ Saputo Stadium \ score \ soccer \ USL