Saturday evening brings an all-Canadian clash to the MLS with hosts, Montreal Impact, entertaining their Canadian rivals, Toronto FC, at the Stade Saputo in Quebec with not only bragging rights at stake, but also an important 3 points up for grabs.
Despite a slight dip in form, Montreal Impact still occupy 4th place in the Eastern Conference with just 1 point separating them from DC United and Atlanta United ahead of this weekend’s action in the MLS.
3 defeats from their last 5 matches have seen Montreal suffer inconvenient losses to Orlando City, Atlanta United and Minnesota United which hasn’t had too much of an impact on their play-off position, but they now find themselves 6 points adrift of Conference leaders, Philadelphia Union.
Montreal made a great start to the campaign as they registered back-to-back wins at home against Columbus Crew and Chicago Fire, but they’ve since won just 3 of their subsequent 7 matches on home turf at their Stade Saputo.
Nevertheless, recent wins against Real Salt Lake, Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers should give them a boost for this clash against Toronto, whom they’ve beaten in their last two meetings at home, winning 2-0 and 1-0 respectively.
Onto Toronto FC, and the visitors are just about clinging onto the last remaining play-off spot in the Eastern Conference, sitting in 7th spot but level on points with 8th placed New England Revolution.
In addition, Toronto have the likes of Orlando City and Chicago Fire both breathing down their necks and both just 1 point behind them prior to this weekend’s MLS action.
The pressure is starting to mount and Toronto are perhaps feeling the pinch as they’ve managed just 1 win out of their last 11 matches overall in the MLS.
This lean spell includes just the one win against Atlanta United, winning 3-2 on home turf at their BMO Field, but this poor sequence of results also includes 6 defeats.
The story doesn’t get any better when switching to Toronto’s results away from home as the visitors have now endured a 6-match spell without a win on their travels, and includes defeats at Atlanta United, Real Salt Lake, Dallas and LA Galaxy.
With just 1 clean sheet from their last 20 matches on their travels, it doesn’t look too good for Toronto in this upcoming clash with Montreal Impact.