Houston should be up by 3 goals. Kamara is absolutely destroying them and if Holden would stop looking around to pass the ball in the box and instead step into it and shoot, this would be a blowout. They may rue that Holden wasn't more aggressive right in front of the net. On the flip side, Mullan/Clark/Barrett have just been plain horrible all night ........ especially the first two.
Now Houston knows what happens when you stop playing after 80 minutes. I get that it was their first "real" game of the season, but they need to stay focused. Atlante shouldn't have scored there. I also completely with onefineesq about Holden. He had a prime chance to send them up 2-0 and instead he lets off a weakly aimed pass. It's fine to be unselfish player, but c'mon. Make the pass!
Attendance in Montreal will be huge. A member of TFC's front office who was in Montreal for the announcement of this year's Canadian Championship schedule has said that ticket sales have gone over 50,000. Granted it may be an executive of one team blowing smoke up the ass of somebody from another, but everything up till now seemed to indicate over 50,000 was possible.
That's amazing for Montreal. If only more Americans could get this excited about the sport. I remember the FSC commentators saying last night, maybe 15 minutes into the match, that people were "still filing in." That's a nice way of saying the stadium was half empty.
I think Montreal definitely has a chance. Santos Laguna isn't doing well in domestic play. While they've won 2 of their last 3, a loss to UAG was in the middle. What will make the difference is how much the weather and the fieldturf affect them. If Montreal can hold them scoreless, and put up a few goals, Santos is DOA for leg 2, especially if Montreal scores even one goal in leg 2.
Knowing how many people are going to be there, I'm going to guess that motivation alone will get the Canadians to, at the very least, make this a very competitive game. Don't know if anything storybook is in the cards though. Funny how the result has become so secondary...
Santos Laguna has lost CCL road games to Tauro (Panama) and Puerto Rico Islanders (Puerto Rico and also a USL-1 club like Montreal) thus far. Their home form in the CCL is the only thing keeping them alive thus far. So yes, Montreal has a decent chance. Plus, they spent a month playing numerous teams in Italy so game shape isn't a concern and their defence looked pretty tight during those games.
Man, this is great for Montreal. It looks like the stadium could get packed during the match. Kudos for Canadian soccer. This is the type of venues that make this tourney better.
LOL at Montreal, a second-division team, drawing 50,000, and Houston, a top-division club, drawing 10,000 for a home game at the exact same level of this competition. Great job Montreal! 1-0 Montreal, halftime just hit.
LOL the Houston game was at 9 pm, you know, so it gets out at 11 and then people have to drive home. What time did the Montreal game start? Oh yeah 8 pm, which while only an hour makes a huge difference to many people. Not to mention that Montreal didnt draw shit for any of the group stage games. You are an idiot but I guess I should have realized with the little "Seattle" under your name.
The USL keeps embarrassing the MLS, I love it. I don't understand why some MLS fans are celebrating this as if it were an MLS club. Piss off.
I celebrate it because this is going to be huge for footy in Canada. Even our soccer-hating media won't be able to ignore Montreal winning a Champions League game in front of almost 56K people. Tonight's game may very well end up being the highest attendance for any sporting event in Canada in 2009.
Why not? I like to see the Mexican teams lose. They think they own Concacaf. Having said that, the much bigger issue for me is that eventually I hope that MLS as a unit is embarassed enough by these USL teams winning that they make a substantive enough change in order to make them more likely to win. This nonsense that Garber spouted last fall that Superliga was the priority is total shit, and getting this shoved in his gut might be the impetus for him to change his mind.