Never a loss was so sweet for Montreal fans. At least it was in MLS this time.
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You can't say I did not tell you the Whitecaps would win this one by a pair of goals. It was one of my rare good prediction of the day (the only one of five calls where I ended up with the right side and right spread). The Caps were opportunistics, while Montreal's strikers were not. Montreal did create some scoring opportunities, but they never benefited from them while Vancouver made Montreal look really bad on both goals.
First a tic-tac-toe play from the middle of their own zone led to a LeToux breakaway against Ricketts. Tyson Wahl's hesitation costed him and his team dearly and Ricketts did not look like the season and successful veteran we were told about on the Frenchman's shot which helped him opening his scoring account much earlier than last season in Philly.
Three minutes in and one goal behind. Far from a dream start for Montreal's XI.
Missed opportunities will be an overused expression by the end of the month for the Impact while Camilo served a double espresso to Ferrari in the second half to double the hosts' lead on a great individual play.
On the positive (sic) side of things: Justin Braun did good on the left, Nyassi did display great speed, but did a great Peter Byers impression in the second half when he spun the ball way over the goal from the penalty point. Davy Arnaud wasted a few passes directly to opponents, but did great on a half volley from the top of the box sending the ball just over the bar, forcing a corner kick and Justin Mapp had an interesting shot, but missed the mark.
At the end of the night, Montreal found itself on the losing side, but eh!!! Only halfway of the Reds' humiliation on last year's first kick match at Empire Stadium.
It's a long season and Jesse Marsch & co will have to use this to continue build a team that is still a bunch of individual players learning to play together.
Let's be patient and it'll take us less than six seasons to make it on the list of playoffs hopefuls.
The hope now is that the +55K that I expect filling the Big O next Saturday will fuel the club's first MLS win over Chicago next Saturday.