I’m going to start this column off by stating the obvious: Playing on the road is always going to be more difficult than playing at home. There, I said it! It doesn’t take meticulous research of statistics or presenting a whole bunch of fancy analytics to figure that one out. Nevertheless, some teams do better than others. If there’s one team in Major League Soccer that takes the cake in terms of playing the “others” role to perfection recently, it’s the Montreal Impact.
Montreal Impact Road Woes: 0 for the Century or at Least the Last Year or So
Get this- Since Frank Klopas assumed head coaching duties last season, the Impact have played a total of 21 road games. They have yet to emerge victorious in any of them. Their 0-12-5 mark away from Stade Saputo in 2014 was worst in the league. When you add in the four road games from this season they’ve obtained a grand total of six points away from home under Klopas. You have to go back to the Marco Schallibaum era to find their last road win, a 4-2 triumph at Gillette Stadium over New England on September 8, 2013.
Nowhere was Montreal’s decrepit home form more evident than last weekend in Bridgeview, IL. The 3-0 scoreline in favor of Chicago Fire SC didn’t do justice to how one-sided this match was. The Impact were outshot 20-3, didn’t register a single shot on goal, and possessed the ball for a scant 35.1 percent of the game. It was pretty much endemic of what we’ve come to expect given what has been already laid out above.
Contrast that with the rest of their 2015 which, in certain respects, has been nothing short of spectacular. The club made a captivating run to the finals of the CONCACAF Champions League where they were 45 minutes away from an unlikely regional championship before eventually falling to Mexico’s Club America. Opposing sides have found it immensely challenging to escape Quebec with a result as the Impact have won three and drawn one in their five home games so far. Just ask the Vancouver Whitecaps, currently the league’s third-best team in terms of points but who dropped a 2-1 decision in Montreal on Wednesday.
Will the Real Montreal Impact Please Stand Up?
What Impact team can we expect to see when the Bleu-Blanc-Noir make their way to MAPFRE Stadium for Saturday night’s match-up with Columbus Crew SC? Are we going to see a side that demonstrated an uncanny capability of getting results in crazily hostile environments during the knockout stage of the CCL? Or is it going to be more of the same as regards their league form as visitors where they still have yet to score a goal in 2015?
If there’s anything Columbus Crew SC have found out this week, it’s that some trends are simply destined to come to an end at some point. The Black and Gold saw a nearly two-year run of dominance against the Philadelphia Union come to an end with a 3-0 midweek drubbing. What must the home side do to ensure l’Impact aren’t able to buck their own trend of road ineptitude?
Don’t Let Jack Mac Have a Breakout Game
Montreal has been ravaged by injuries to their forwards. It began when promising rookie Cameron Porter, who famously kept alive the Impact’s CCL hopes with a last second game-winning goal in the CCL quarterfinals, tore his ACL against New England. Then came news after the club’s 4-1 win over Real Salt Lake that Dominic Oduro, formerly of Crew SC, would miss a few weeks due to a pulled groin.
That left a huge opportunity for Jack McInerney to take the reins of the Montreal attack. So far, he’s done well being the lone target up top in the Impact’s primary formation, the 4-2-3-1. He has found the net twice since Oduro’s injury and three times total, good enough to be tied for the team lead with attacking midfielder Ignacio Piatti.
When Jack Mac is on, he’s an extremely elusive player able to find any sort of space that opposing defenses concede to him. His slight 5’10”, 151 pound frame doesn’t lend itself to him being one of those bruising, hulking number nines in the Kei Kamara mold, so instead he’s patterned his game around a more channel running style of play. The Crew SC back line, which was horribly porous against Philadelphia, can certainly redeem itself if they can keep McInerney bottled up.
But Then Of Course There’s The Issue of Nacho
Perhaps an even more threatening component of Montreal’s attack the Black and Gold will need to be aware of is Piatti. As mentioned above, the Argentine number ten is tied with McInerney for the team lead in goals and also has two assists to his name in 2015. What makes Piatti such an effective playmaker is how adept he is with the ball at his feet and his ability to distribute near goal. That latter quality is evident in the fact that he’s tied for sixth league-wide (with Sporting KC’s Benny Feilhaber) in key passes per game (a pass that leads to a chance at net) with 2.5.
There are a handful of potent “ten-nine combos,” as I like to call them, in this league. Columbus’ partnership between Kamara and Federico Higuaín certainly comes to mind. Even though they’re not quite at that point yet, Nacho and Jack Mac has a nice ring to it and in the few games they’ve been on the field together it’s resulted in some good things for the Impact, particularly at home.
In terms of attacking potential, the future does look bright for this club. If Porter can fully recover from his knee injury and Oduro can maintain some sort of consistency, 2016 could see Montreal become one of the more productive goal-scoring sides in the league. By the way, can someone remind me that I wrote that sentence next year?
Laurent Ciman’s Defensive Presence Not To Be Taken Lightly
Montreal’s big splash designated player signing in the offseason came in the form of Laurent Ciman. The 29-year-old Belgian spent the previous six seasons with Standard Liege, making 152 appearances for one of his native country’s most storied clubs. In the brief period of time he’s been with the Impact, he’s already established himself as a major presence at center back and one of the league’s best defenders.
Road adversity aside, Ciman’s prowess on the back line has certainly shown up statistically. His 5.9 interceptions per game leads MLS by a wide margin. The second-ranked player in this category, Houston’s Jermaine Taylor, is way behind at 4.8 per game. Of the players who’ve appeared in at least 70 percent of their team’s minutes, Ciman’s 15.76 percent usage rate when combining recoveries and interceptions is third-best in MLS.
Players possessing good defensive soccer IQ are able to effectively dispossess attacking players and also anticipate the opposition’s passing tendencies before the ball reaches its intended target. Ciman is exceptional in this regard and will test Crew SC’s offensive acumen which, with league-leading scorer Kamara up top, knows how to break opposing defenses.
While the Black and Gold hope to add to their current four-game unbeaten run at MAPFRE Stadium, the visitors from Quebec are looking to end a fairly dubious streak of futility away from Stade Saputo. Impact fans have been unhappy with Klopas as a result, but if he can pull something big off in Columbus he may well get a stay of execution. For Crew SC, getting back to winning ways at home after only getting two points from their last four will be of paramount importance.
Columbus Crew SC News and Notes
– Crew SC’s 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Union ended a four-match unbeaten run in the series dating back nearly two years, where the Union also won 3-0 at PPL Park on June 5, 2013.
– The Black and Gold enjoy a 6-2-1 all-time record against Montreal and have won all five previous meetings at MAPFRE Stadium.
– Forward Kei Kamara’s current tally of ten goals leads MLS and the Sierra Leone international needs one more to equal his career high which he set with Sporting Kansas City in 2012.
– Midfielder Ethan Finlay is tied with SKC’s Benny Feilhaber for the league lead in assists with seven. The Black and Gold are undefeated this season when Finlay appears on the score sheet in this fashion.
– Both clubs are among the league’s leaders in terms of technical passing ability, with Crew SC second in passing accuracy per game (80.77 percent) and the Impact fifth (78.44 percent).
– Crew SC are currently fourth in the league in shot accuracy with 37.18 percent of their shots finding the goal. However, in wins they’re hitting the net 45.1 percent of the time, whereas in losses their accuracy falls to 31.7 percent.
Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images
