MONTREAL – As the rain fell onto the pitch at Stade Saputo, goals seemed to rain down as well during the first half of Wednesday night’s contest, six in total, as the Montreal Impact fell 4-2 to D.C. United.
And as you may have guessed, the Impact was not very happy with their effort.
“It was obviously very disappointing,” explained Klopas. “I want a group of players that will go out and leave everything on the field and do anything it takes to win. We score two goals, we are up 2-1 and then the energy level after that was very disappointing.”
“I don’t think we had enough tackles to win the battles,” added Impact keeper Troy Perkins. “It’s our field, our home and we didn’t have that edge or that bite and we certainly got outcompeted tonight.”
One of those ready to compete for the black and red was D.C. striker Luis Silva, who took things into his own hands, scoring a hat trick before half-time. His first came just six minutes in when he was played through by Chris Rolfe. The second came in the 39th minute when he curled one past Perkins from long distance and his third came from the spot when the referee made a questionable penalty call four minutes into added time.
After D.C. scored the early opener, the Impact seemed to find some life, taking a 2-1 lead when Jack McInerney scored off of a beautiful through ball by Hassoun Camara in the 12th minute and Andres Romero found histhird goal in three straight games with a great individual effort near the top of the box.
But, some shoddy defending and the penalty kick in the final seconds gave D.C. United enough of a lead to park the bus in the second half.
“We come back in the game and take the lead, but we fall mentally,” explained Bernier. “We give up four goals in a half and give away this game when we should be playing like our lives depended on it.”
Bernier had a chance to bring the bleu-blanc-noir back within one when the ref called a PK for the home side in the 75th minute, but his shot was deflected by United keeper Andrew Dykstra off of the post, a first miss for the captain in 11 tries.
Nick De Leon scored the other goal for D.C. when he tapped in a low cross from Fabian Espindola 23 minutes in.
The Impact is now on a two week break in MLS regular season action as the 2014 FIFA World Cup kicks off Thursday. The bleu-blanc-noir will return to the pitch in Vancouver against the Whitecaps FC on Wednesday, June 25 at 10pm EDT.
Lineups
MTL – GK-Troy Perkins; D-Karl W. Ouimette, Heath Pearce, Wandrille Lefèvre, Hassoun Camara; M-Patrice Bernier, Hernan Bernardello (Maxim Tissot 69’), Andrés Romero, Felipe, Issey Nakajima-Farran (Marco Di Vaio 53’); F-Jack McInerney
Subs not used: GK-Evan Bush; D-Matteo Ferrari, Futty Danso; M-Gorka Larrea; F-Santiago Gonzalez
DCU – GK-Andrew Dykstra; D-Cristian Fernandez, Sean Franklin, Steve Birnbaum, Bobby Boswell; M-Perry Kitchen, Nick DeLeon, Luis Silva (Lewis Neal 66’), Davy Arnaud; F-Fabian Espindola (Conor Doyle 45’), Chris Rolfe (Alex Caskey 90’)
Subs not used: GK-Joe Willis; D-Taylor Kemp; M-Jared Jeffrey, Kyle Porter
Goals
DCU – Silva (Espindola, Rolfe) 6’
MTL – McInerney (Camara) 12’
MTL – Romero 21’
DCU – DeLeon (Espindola) 23’
DCU – Silva (Espindola) 39’
DCU – Silva (PK) 45+5’
Cautions
MTL – Romero 25’
MTL – Ouimette 30’
DCU – Espindola 33’
MTL – Lefèvre 81’
DCU – Arnaud 87’
