Montreal keeping the playoff dreams alive.

Don't underestimate your enemy. I hope is something Merrit Paulsen learned last Saturday.
He decided to rest important players like De Rosario, Pontius and Boskovic that night because, I guess, substitutes are enough to beat an expansion team.

Well, obviously things didn't turn up as expected.

Bernier and Warner. Courtesy of impactmontreal.com 

Impact played another strong game at home. Montreal controlled the midfield while defenders were sharp all 90 min.

Again the Warner-Bernier duo was close to perfect, this allowed to have more presence in the midfield and create more chances overall.

We didn't start the game well.  Sometimes we seemed to be more concerned about not losing the game keeping a harmless, low paced possession. This reminded me when we played against TFC in the Canadian Championship -bad memories-. Later on, around minute 22, Bernier made a great accurate pass in the box to Di Vaio and goal!!

Great classy finishing by the Italian and yes, first shot of the game first goal. Deserved? Hard to tell because DC United didn't do much before that either. 

Montreal, again in the situation of do or die, didn't risk much in the attack focusing a lot on having a flawless defense and tying to preserve the lead at all cost. This style has benefited Montreal lately because our all-around midfielders can pretty much attack and defend at any time -thanks Jesse- and all of the sudden in the second half Collen Warner had a clear run for the ball in the box, after another top class pass from Bernier, but received a clear contact from the central defender getting the penalty shot called from the referee. This was probably a non-existent call in Serie A, but MLS has been consistent on this particular type of play and Hassun Camara or Matteo Ferrari know something about it. 

The rest of the game was an open 2-0 typical scenario where Montreal counter attacked a low paced DC United in several occasions and after three or four attempts the third goal arrived. Patrice Bernier, who outclassed the opponents all game, made a 70 meters run to kill Hamid with a shot to the near post. Thanks Patrice!, thanks.

These are some enjoyable times in Montreal, specially while the playoffs hopes are alive.

Now, the next opponent is the red hot Columbus Crew and Federico Higuain. I've been saying this before the game with San Jose and here I go again. If we win this match we have a great chance to make the playoffs.

Here are the highlights from the game.