Let's face it, we didn't beat the Impact's best team 6-1 on Thursday. That doesn't matter though - we needed to win by four, and we pulled off the improbable. Before the match, I would have honestly bet someone $1,000 that we wouldn't do it. I was certain it would be one of those "oh well, we created enough to win by four..." nights. That wasn't the case.
If you want to know the man behind the win, look no further than tournament MVP Dwayne De Rosario. He put in his best performance of the season, and you knew that he wasn't leaving the Stade Saputo without that trophy. If you listened to his halftime interview, you got the feeling that he was going to carry this team to the championship, and that's exactly what he did. His hat-trick lead the team on as he was all over the pitch all night.
Both Impact fans and Whitecaps fans are a little pissed off about the lineup that Marco Dos Santos fielded - it included two players from their CSL reserve team, the Trois-Rivieres Attak. The match may have meant nothing to the Impact in the long run, but isn't a game against a Canadian rival supposed to be about pride - regardless of what the match means? The Impact may have won last year's Voyageurs Cup, but now we can say we destroyed them 6-1. They finished this year's tournament 0-4-0 with 1 GF and 10 GA. Nice work.
Montreal helped us out a lot by fielding a B team, or...a Z team. It was pretty bad. Despite this, we found ourselves 1-0 down twenty minutes in after a Tony Donatelli penalty kick. Coming back after that setback shows character, something that many have questioned in this team.
The two best players on either team - DeRo and Guevara - scored 5 goals between them, and the infamous clincher, our fifth, came from a very unlikely source - Chad Barrett. I've been pretty damn hard on Barrett over the past few weeks. He misses sitters like it's going out of style. I have to give him full credit on this one though, it was a difficult header and he put it right where it needed to go - in the back of the net.
One man who cannot go without mention is Stefan Frei. He made two extremely key saves in the second half to keep the Impact's tally at just one. As we pushed forward, only Nick Garcia and Adrian Serioux were back for us, and on a couple of Montreal counterattacks, Frei saved our asses.
Part of the irony in the win is that Vancouver outscored us head to head 2-1. Last year, we outscored Montreal 2-1 though, and that didn't help us any. That excuse won't work. The rules were in place before the tournament even began, and there was no complaining from either opposing party when Toronto needed to win by four to win the trophy. We did what we had to do - it's as simple as that.
So, onto the CONCACAF Champions League, where our preliminary qualifier puts us against another USL side, the Puerto Rico Islanders, who were semi-finalists in last year's competition. If we can win that series, we'll be in a group with the Columbus Crew. Anyone else in for some Champions League tasering?
Winning our first piece of silverware is huge. It's exciting. It feels just about as sweet as you'd expect. Our season isn't done though - we're still 5-5-4 in the league, and we have to power on to make sure we're in the playoffs come October. Let's do it.
If you want to know the man behind the win, look no further than tournament MVP Dwayne De Rosario. He put in his best performance of the season, and you knew that he wasn't leaving the Stade Saputo without that trophy. If you listened to his halftime interview, you got the feeling that he was going to carry this team to the championship, and that's exactly what he did. His hat-trick lead the team on as he was all over the pitch all night.
Both Impact fans and Whitecaps fans are a little pissed off about the lineup that Marco Dos Santos fielded - it included two players from their CSL reserve team, the Trois-Rivieres Attak. The match may have meant nothing to the Impact in the long run, but isn't a game against a Canadian rival supposed to be about pride - regardless of what the match means? The Impact may have won last year's Voyageurs Cup, but now we can say we destroyed them 6-1. They finished this year's tournament 0-4-0 with 1 GF and 10 GA. Nice work.
Montreal helped us out a lot by fielding a B team, or...a Z team. It was pretty bad. Despite this, we found ourselves 1-0 down twenty minutes in after a Tony Donatelli penalty kick. Coming back after that setback shows character, something that many have questioned in this team.
The two best players on either team - DeRo and Guevara - scored 5 goals between them, and the infamous clincher, our fifth, came from a very unlikely source - Chad Barrett. I've been pretty damn hard on Barrett over the past few weeks. He misses sitters like it's going out of style. I have to give him full credit on this one though, it was a difficult header and he put it right where it needed to go - in the back of the net.
One man who cannot go without mention is Stefan Frei. He made two extremely key saves in the second half to keep the Impact's tally at just one. As we pushed forward, only Nick Garcia and Adrian Serioux were back for us, and on a couple of Montreal counterattacks, Frei saved our asses.
Part of the irony in the win is that Vancouver outscored us head to head 2-1. Last year, we outscored Montreal 2-1 though, and that didn't help us any. That excuse won't work. The rules were in place before the tournament even began, and there was no complaining from either opposing party when Toronto needed to win by four to win the trophy. We did what we had to do - it's as simple as that.
So, onto the CONCACAF Champions League, where our preliminary qualifier puts us against another USL side, the Puerto Rico Islanders, who were semi-finalists in last year's competition. If we can win that series, we'll be in a group with the Columbus Crew. Anyone else in for some Champions League tasering?
Winning our first piece of silverware is huge. It's exciting. It feels just about as sweet as you'd expect. Our season isn't done though - we're still 5-5-4 in the league, and we have to power on to make sure we're in the playoffs come October. Let's do it.
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3 comments:
I don't think I will ever get tired of watching those highlights :)
On that note, I think I'll fire up the game in six minutes . . . again!
i didn't know DeRo got the FIRST three! that was sick, sick, sick
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