One week from the first leg of its Eastern Conference Championship series against Toronto FC, on Tuesday, November 22 at 8pm at the Olympic Stadium (TICKETS), the Montreal Impact uplifted its competitive spirit this Tuesday morning at Centre Nutrilait.
Split into two groups, the Impact players took part in an intrasquad scrimmage that admittedly did them a lot of good.
“We’re one week from the game, so this is just like a typical week: we play a game, we get a day off and we get another work week going,” said defender Wandrille Lefèvre. “It was important for us to play this scrimmage as if it were an actual game, and we saw as much, what with the intensity in our play.”
Added goalkeeper Evan Bush: “It was important, more so for fitness purposes to keep guys in the big spaces. Tactically, there were some things that we tried to implement. But the reality is that we still have some guys away with their national team, and some guys only played for a bit because of some nagging stuff. Come Thursday at the Big O, we’re going to ramp up the intensity a bit.”
Still, pre-match work is well underway, said head coach Mauro Biello, pointing out that every selection for the starting XI is based on thorough preparation.
“There is lots of analysis of the other team, and then tactical preparation. You don’t just put 11 players on the field with a formation and get the result that you want,” said Biello. “You have to work on the scenarios that we may face against Toronto and work on the things that we can do to unbalance them. Every game presents a different challenge. The challenge against Toronto will be different than the ones in New York and D.C., so we’ll have to prepare in a specific way.”
