By BRYAN ROBISON
There was no late match heroics for San Jose this time around, as they built themselves too big of a hole to come back from thanks to a two goal defecit. After falling behind early, Montreal charged back, scoring three unanswered goals, and winning their fourth consecutive home match 3-1 at Stade Saputo on Saturday.
After an expected rough start to their debut season, the Impact have come on strongly in the second half of the year, specifically at home. Since switching over to Stade Saputo for their home matches in June, Montreal is 7-2. They now sit in a tie for fifth place in the Eastern Conference standings with DC United. However, United does have five games in hand on the Impact.
With a trio of goals from Marco Di Vaio, Lamar Neagle, and Patrice Bernier, Montreal was able to take it to the Western Conference leading Earthquakes.
The Impact fell down early, as Golden Boot leader Chris Wondolowski put the Earthquakes up with a 23rd minute penalty kick. The goal was Wondolowski's eighteenth on the season, but his first since a July 14th hat trick.
The penalty kick came from a major altercation between San Jose's Steven Lenhart and Montreal's Hassoun Camara. After a scuffle inside the box, the referees deliberated for quite some time. In the end, referee Armando Villarreal gave a red card to both players, and awarded a penalty to San Jose.
From there, however, it was all Montreal. They responded quickly, as Di Vaio tied it up just two minutes later after falling behind. Two second half goals sealed the victory for the surging Impact.
They will look to extend their winning streak to five matches next Saturday against the aformentioned DC United at home. Meanwhile, San Jose will return home to take on the Colorado Rapids next Saturday.
Here are the match highlights:
Will Montreal make the playoffs in their first season? Will Chris Wondolowski return to his goal-scoring ways and break the MLS record of goals in a season? Share your thoughts below.
+1. The ref should have only thrown out Camara. I watched the reply and I did not see anything from Lenhart that warranted a red.
Survey said 90% like playoffs
+1
lol @ “20%”…who did that study?
What are you blind? Camara was no where near grabbing Lenhart. He got backhanded and it’s easy to see. Hopefully refs just start tossing him on a regular basis because a lot of fans from every team are sick of his crap.
I watched again just to humor the conspiracy theorists and figured it out. Camara was simply trying to wipe the Summer’s Eve aroma off of Lenhart because he can’t stand its foul stench. The ref didn’t red card them for violent conduct but rather so they could go take a shower to freshen up.
Mexico is also crowns two champions a year and has relegation its not like the MLS is modeled after Mexico.
He backhanded Camara in the face. It’s a typical Lenhart dickmove that he does almost every match but usually gets away with. Lenhart and his cheating punches, jabs, and over dramatized dives and “injuries” belong in professional wrestling, not professional soccer. His antics are the reason he’s never gotten a national team callup – he’s too much of a risk because he’s mental and he’s a cheat.
Mexico uses a playoff system as well – i think that qualifies as a successful soccer league.
Sure. That makes sense. Camara made it seem like a sly, inconspicuous jab so he could go violently and obviously ballistic on Lenhart in a way that would get the ref’s attention because Camara wanted to be ejected. And Obama was not born in Hawaii but is actually from the planet of Commiezakulon X. And John O’Brien shot Kennedy.
We can take arbitrary numbers out of arbitrary hats all day long to support our unsubstantiated positions. The current structure of MLS appears to be allowing the game to continue to grow; playing in the summer appears to allow for the development of a growing fan base, etc.
Even though I prefer a European structure for MLS, I realize that it the current structure is working fine. I also realize that many fans are like me, and don’t care either way. In fact, I’m going to say that 74% of fans agree with me, if we are drawing arbitrary numbers out of the ether.
Apparently, 62% of American soccer fans also think Larry has green skin…
bs red on lenhart he didn’t do anything
the thing is that MLS believes that they must model the league after other American sports rather than model it after successful soccer leagues around the world. They think they must do this to appeal to the American fan. The reality is it almost certainly turns off more fans than it brings in.
A soccer league where the regular season is all about playoff seeding makes for a pretty lame regular season. Now, you may not agree. You may be that 20% of the American soccer fan that enjoys MLS playoffs and MLS’s regular season.
MLS is pretty much run by guys with NFL mindsets. Most of them came from the NFL. The actually want MLS to be structured like the NFL with 6 divisions, wild cards etc. Again..this may appeal to the 20% who also view soccer through an American-centric viewpoint. But the rest of the soccer watching public gags at the idea.
Globalization has changed everything. A soccer league that is done the American way no longer makes any sense. It never made sense.
Not a fan of SJ nor Lenhart, but he didn’t do any thing on that hit. Kamara grabbed Lenharts arm and smacked himself in the face with it. Then hit Lenhart for “hitting him”
I can’t take anyone who calls it “the” MLS seriously. And personally I like the playoffs, I just don’t like the current format for the playoffs.
Its not as horrible as having over half the league make the playoffs. If they are going to have playoffs make the cut off reasonable having this many teams make the playoffs make it kind of a joke
Thats a horrible idea
i hope its a Montreal vs San Jose final. Nobody will watch and then the MLS may finally figure it out that a playoff to decide league champion is silly.
just go to single table with league champ being the regular season winner already.
then have a separate MLS Cup that includes every MLS team. This isn’t rocket science.
Lenhart is a clown, no matter how many ugly goals he scores.
finally, some ref was forced to call out Lenhart on his garbage. been waiting for this all season.
Lenharts a hole ways are still buying san jose penalties. But to see him red carded and SJ lose is priceless