By Pat Hickey
MONTREAL — The good news for the Montreal Impact is that goalkeeper Matt Jordan is back after missing 11 games with a groin injury. The bad news is that Jordan can’t score goals — and neither can any of his teammates.
Jordan made some outstanding saves in his return, but the Impact had another late-game meltdown against the Vancouver Whitecaps and dropped a 1-0 decision when Greg Janicki headed home the winner on a throw-in from Wes Knight late in the second half.
The goal off a set play spoiled Wesley Charles’s debut with the Impact. Charles, who started the season with the Whitecaps, was marking Janicki in the box but got caught in the traffic.
“I was right on him and someone backed into me,” Charles said. “I expected Wesley to be grabbing my jersey and holding on to me because that’s what he used to do in practice when he was in Vancouver,” Janicki said. “He was right around me, but there were a lot of people trying to make room.
“It was a perfect throw from Wes Knight,” Janicki added. “He does a good job of getting the ball in there and we should have more goals off those plays this season.”
Janicki said he felt he owed his teammates after missing the last game because of a suspension.
“I felt I let them down by taking a penalty in the Portland game and I was glad I could give them a win tonight.”
It was the second time in the past month that Vancouver has disappointed the crowd at Saputo Stadium with a winning goal late in the game. On June 30, Luca Bellisomo scored in extra time for a 2-1 victory.
On that occasion, Montreal coach Marc Dos Santos bemoaned losing to a team “that’s not as good as us.”
That wasn’t the case last Wednesday night. The Whitecaps pressured the Impact from the start and Montreal didn’t kick into high gear until it was too late.
“We didn’t want to make the same mistake we made last game,” said Vancouver coach Teitur Thordarson. “In that game, they could have been up by two or three goals at halftime. We wanted to put pressure on them early. We didn’t plan to win in the last minutes like that. We wanted to score earlier but we’ll take it.”
The failure to earn at least a point was another blow to the Impact’s playoff hopes in the United States Soccer Federation Division-2. The Impact dropped to 6-8-5 on the season and is now 10 points behind first-place Vancouver in the North American Soccer League Conference standings. The Whitecaps are in first place in the conference and second overall in the league at 8-3-9.
The Impact is third in their conference but they are ninth in the overall standings. And the failure to win games at home — the team is 4-4-3 at Saputo Stadium — may come back to bite the Impact.
The team plays seven of its final 11 games on the road, beginning with Saturday visit to Baltimore, which is one of the teams chasing Montreal in the overall standings.
Montreal Gazette
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