"At halftime, I was a little bit nervous because even if we had good ball possession we were not playing like we wanted to win the series," said Impact head coach John Limniatis. "But we came back from the locker room to play a spectacular second half to come from behind and win the series."
Midfielder David Testo opened the scoring for the Impact at the 56th minute. After several passes in the offensive zone, Testo completed the set play by sending the short- sided pass of forward Peter Byers into Seattle's net. Sounders goalkeeper Chris Eylander dove to make the save but ended up deflecting the ball in the top left corner.
The Sounders tied the game three minutes later. Midfielder Sanna Nyassi accepted a back-pass from forward Sébastien Letoux on the right flank and centered a low pass to forward Roger Levesque (59th minute), who deflected the ball into the net while diving to the ground.
Levesque was later ejected from the game, receiving a red card for a hard tackle on Impact defender Adam Braz. On the ensuing Sandro Grande free kick, Mauro Biello took the ball in the face but managed to make a short pass to a trailing Rocco Placentino. From the very top of the box, Placentino took a powerful shot that went off the inside of the post to beat Sounders goalkeeper Chris Eylander.
At the 80th minute, Impact goalkeeper Matt Jordan made a spectacular diving save to his right on a Seattle free kick from outside of the box. On the play, defender Adam Braz was handed a red card for taking forward Roger Levesque down inside the six metre area and the Sounders were awarded a penalty kick. Alcaraz-Cuellar scored, but the goal was refused because a Seattle player had entered the box too early. On his second attempt, Alcaraz-Cuellar hit the post to Jordan's left.
“Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar is a good player, but on the second penalty kick I just decided to stand him up and to react,” said Matt Jordan. “I don’t know if he saw me and if that made a difference in the play but I’m just glad that he missed. Again, the guys were unbelievable tonight. We had a never-die attitude and that shows a lot of heart from us as a team.”
Midfielder Antonio Ribeiro entered the game for the Impact in the 88th minute and scored the series-winner less than two minutes later. On the play, midfielder Joey Gjertsen took a well-placed shot from about 35 metres out, hitting the crossbar, but leaving an easy tap into an empty net for Ribeiro, who was all alone in the goalmouth.
"Once again today we showed all the quality we have on the bench," explained team captain Mauro Biello. "Seattle is a very good team with a lot of strong players technically. We beat one of the best teams in the league."
"In the second half, I think they sat back a little bit too much because of the fatigue," said David Testo. "We had more legs and we took advantage of it. It's an amazing win for us. We had a really strong finish to the regular season finishing in third place and we're trying to keep that momentum going in the playoffs."
The Montreal Impact now has a lifetime playoff record of 16-16-5 (47 goals for, 38 against) and a lifetime record of 11-7-3 at home (32 goals for, 17 against).
The first match of this home-and-away series on Friday night resulted in a 2-1 loss for the Impact at the Starfire Complex in Tukwila, near Seattle.
The Impact will now face the Vancouver Whitecaps in the semifinals. Last night in Minnesota, the Thunder rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win the return match 4-3, but the Whitecaps still advanced 6-5 on total goals.
Montreal will likely face the Whitecaps on Friday and Sunday, but the series details will be confirmed on Monday.
In the meantime, the Impact will hold a training session on Monday morning before leaving for Honduras on Tuesday. They play CD Olimpia on Wednesday at 10 pm ET, as part of the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League.
OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
36th minute - Deep inside the 18-metre box, forward Peter Byers did well to deflect a pass from Joey Gjertsen off the left side, but the shot missed just wide.
50th minute - Overlapping the Montreal defense on the right flank, Sounders midfielder Sanna Nyassi centered the ball towards forward Sébastien Letoux, who deflected the ball to the left of the Impact net.
GAME SUMMARY
PHOTOS PÉPÉ
VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS
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Source : Patrick Vallée, Impact de Montréal
Info : 514-328-3668 (poste 227)
