MONTREAL — The Montreal Impact will be heading down the 20 and 401 highways to Toronto with a milestone on their minds. The team is 90 minutes away from lifting a 10th Voyageurs Cup in franchise history.
Before the start of the Canadian Championship in 2008, the Voyageurs Cup was given to the most successful Canadian club since 2002. The Impact won all six trophies in that era from 2002 to 2007 and secured the first cup win in the Canadian Championship. With nine in the trophy case, Montreal have been waiting for their decima moment since 2014.
“It’s been a little while that we haven’t gotten to a final so it’s already big to be there,” said assistant coach Patrice Bernier. “We’re a game away and at the same time it would be a 10th cup for the club, too.”
Bernier admitted his favorite moment at BMO Field was a 5-3 Impact win over Toronto FC in 2017. Toronto had an 11-game unbeaten streak at the time and Ignacio Piatti and Anthony Jackson-Hamel both scored twice to break that run of form. However, a Voyageurs Cup win Wednesday would trump that memory.
“That would be the best,” Bernier said. “We’ve beaten them before and that’s great. The 6-0 at home (in the 2013 Canadian Championship semifinals), that’s a glorious moment. But to win there, to lift the cup there, nothing would beat that.”
Samuel Piette, one of the team’s leaders, is playing his first professional final. Having followed the club’s 2015 Concacaf Champions League run, Piette knows what this cup represents to the club and is confident for the second leg.
“I think it’ll come down to who wants it more,” he said. “And I know that every time we go into the second half with a 1-0 lead, or at least a lead, we’re pretty good. So I think we’re in a good position to secure that trophy.”
Risky versus cautious
Impact coach Wilmer Cabrera has been very vocal about wanting to take risks since joining the Impact in early August. With a 1-0 lead, the Impact take pride in not conceding an away goal to their rivals. However, taking risks and being too aggressive could come back and haunt Montreal at BMO Field.
“It’s an interesting approach to this game,” Piette said. “Yes we have a 1-0 lead, but you don’t want to be in your area too much and to be too defensive because you can take in a lot and end up conceding.”
For Piette, the key to the game will be the possession game. He believes if the Impact can control the tempo of the game, they will win this final.
“Offensively we need to keep the ball as long as possible,” Piette said. “I think we did that very well in the first leg, especially in the first half. But we know that our strength is the counter-attack with Nacho, Bojan, Maxi (Urruti), Orji (Okwonkwo) and Lassi (Lappalainen), all fast players.”
Shamit Shome is expecting a “chess match” between both rivals who each have intentions of returning to the Champions League.
“We have to be very smart,” Shome said. “We don’t want to expose ourselves too much where we concede a goal early. But we want to keep a clean sheet because if we keep that clean sheet, we win the game.”