The Serbian White Eagles suffered their first defeat of the season, the extremely high-quality Montreal Impact Academy team deservedly won with 2:1 (0:1). It’s been a long time since the Centennial saw a younger and better quality team made up of exceptionally fit and technically trained players. The Eagles appeared weakened tonight, played a weak first half, and then an excellent half hour with one less player and a surprisingly weak end of the game.
Stadium: Centennial Weather: Ideal Referee: Y. Rudolf
Yellow cards: Miličić, Crozier, Klisara, Rajović
Red card: Miličić (51)
Scorers: 0:1 Vuković (26) 1:1 Rajović (74) 1:2 Morton (82 )
Serbian White Eagles: Đurković, Crozier, Miličić, Vlaški, Dimitrov, West, Klisara, Janošević (52. Orlando), Novais (46. Anastasov), Negojević (78. Anderson), Rajović
Coach: Uroš Stamatović
Montreal Impact Academy: Beaulieu, Augustin, Meftouh, Ndiaye(88.Lincourt-Joseph) Lapointe-Senecal, Morton, Lefevre, Morin, Vuković(84.King), Ait Slimane(63.Laurca-Echeverria), Gagnon-Lapare Coach: Philippe
Eullaffroy
From the very beginning of the match, the guests made it clear that they did not come to defend themselves. They completely controlled the middle of the field, with their fast play they easily reached our goal. In the 19th minute, after an excellent action, Lefevre made an excellent shot from 16 meters, and Đurković boxed the ball into the corner. After the corner, the two visiting attackers have a great opportunity, they shoot twice from the box, but Đurković made a phenomenal save. Our team made a mistake in the 24th minute, and in the first half, Ait Slimane’s extremely motivated right wing shot from twenty meters, Đurković was excellent again. Just two minutes later, Ait Slimane’s new action from the right, deceives Crozier and Miličić, who knocks him down, gets a yellow card and a penalty for the visitors. Stefan Vuković shoots from the penalty spot and Đurković saves the shot, and then the referee enters the scene and repeats the shot for a reason known only to him. This time Vuković is safe and 0:1! Ours had the first real chance in the 37th minute when Rajović takes a free kick from 30 meters, but Beaulieu makes a parade and kicks the ball into the corner. In the 41st minute, after a cross from the left side, Ait Slimane misses the ball from a few meters from the goal. Our team played the first half poorly, it was difficult to get the opponent’s goal and the visitors deservedly went to the break with the advantage.
Nothing changed even at the beginning of the second half, and then, despite being warned by the referee just half a minute earlier, Miličić commits a foul on Vuković from behind, receives a second yellow card and we are left with ten players. That moment seemed to wake up ours, they were completely twitchy, started to run a lot more and it seemed that they had more players on the field. Anastasov was thrown into the void in the 61st minute, went around the goalkeeper, but went too diagonally, tried to center on the second post, he did it poorly. Once again, in the 62nd minute, the referee greatly annoyed everyone in the stadium, when he played a non-existent offside to Rajović, who was in an ideal opportunity. In the 69th minute, Anastasov tries an oblique shot that goes wide of the goal. West in the 70th minute, although he had an open path to the goal, decided to shoot, but straight at the goalkeeper. In 72 minute, a long ball was sent to the half of the visitors and suddenly Rajović runs away from the defense and is completely face to face with the goalkeeper, he decides to lob the running goalkeeper, but misses the empty goal. The Eagles attacked hard and it paid off for them in the 74th minute, when Anastasov, like before, ran away on the left side, ran away from the goalkeeper and then found Rajović, who did a great job and sent the ball into the net from five meters to make it 1:1! We were expecting a complete turnaround, but our players, whether satisfied with the tie or tired or the guests started, are just taking over the game like in the first part. They make a dangerous attack in Đurković in the 76th minute, who enters Vuković’s shot phenomenally. In the 82nd minute, a free kick was awarded to Montreal Impact from the left side. An excellent cross to the second post, where the forgotten Lefevre jumps and heads back to the first post, and the best player of the match, Morton, heads unhindered to make it 1:2! Until the end, the guests had several more opportunities to increase their lead, the Eagles did not create any opportunities and the guests celebrated.
The Eagles were defeated for the first time, deservedly so, but it could easily have been different. After leaving the field, they were greeted with applause, they deserved it for half an hour of great play with fewer players. Congratulations to the young team from Montreal both on the game and fair play. In the end, we should highlight the excellent game of our captain Đurković, not only because of his excellent defenses, but also because of his sportsmanship, and cheering on our players when things were going well, but when they were not.
Z.M.