Impact wins fourth game

Montreal Impact head coach Nick De Santis might keep this in mind when he tries to impress upon his Impact forwards and midfielders the benefits of moving forward, something they did not do during most of the second half in their recent 1-0 defeat of visiting Miami FC.

You don’t have to have wings to finish off plays, and neither do you need to be airborne to score goals, but you do have to move the ball forward, out of your end, and when that’s done, keep it moving in the direction of the other team’s goal. Passing it back or being too easily dispossessed of it when you do have it will land you in trouble sooner or later.

The Impact defense? Solid throughout the game, as usual. Scoring chances created in the second half from the efforts of midfielders and forwards? Between few and none. The damage? None this time as the Montreal side escaped with a steal of all three points from the win, but if this kind of play persists, the outcome will be much different, especially against teams with respectable up-front strength such as the Vancouver Whitecaps who came into town this past Friday.

Much better than the 1-0 squeaker they settled for, winning their fourth game out of six, which added to their two draws moves their unbeaten streak to six.

The win, which sent the 11,873 fans home relatively happy, had moved the Impact into second place in the USL’s first division with 14 points, just three behind the Whitecaps, who are also unbeaten.

The Impact and Whitecaps squared off this past Friday in the third successive home game at Claude Robillard Stadium, marking the half-way point of a six-match home stand which ends in mid-June.

“We were facing a team that was open on the field. If we would have shown greater offensive qualities, we could have created more scoring occasions,” lamented coach De Santis after the game.

The only goal of the match came late in the first half (36th minute) when forward Charles Gbeke, parked in the middle of the 18-yard box, headed home a free kick from midfielder Leonardo Di Lorenzo.

Gbeke, who scored his third goal of the season, could have had at least a couple more, missing from close range in the second minute off a rebound from midfielder Martin Fabro’s low shot that Miami goalkeeper Pat Hannigan had difficulty controlling, and then denied by a diving Hannigan twice more, in the 13th and 66th minutes.



The Impact’s only other real scoring opportunity came from midfielder Martin Fabro in the 42nd minute. Taking a low pass from Gbeke, Fabro went in alone on goalkeeper Hannigan, drilling a shot just barely on the wrong side of the left post.