MONTREAL -- The Montreal Impact took note of Toronto striker Jozy Altidore's advice to Victor Cabrera about defending him, and they got right to work.
"We go in the gym, like he said," Montreal defender Hassoun Camara said after practice at Centre Nutrilait on Monday.
Camara joked about Altidore's comments last week in the wake of the Impact's 3-2 win against Toronto FC at Olympic Stadium on Wednesday in the first leg of the Audi 2016 MLS Cup Eastern Conference Championship series.
Altidore appeared to push Cabrera down onto the turf on the play that led to the Reds' second goal.
"He needs to do more curls," Altidore said when he was asked about the play. "It was a love tap."
Camara believes that Altidore actually feels that he and the Reds caught a break, and a big one, at that, to carry into the second leg at BMO Field on Wednesday night.
"He can say whatever he wants, there's no problem," Camara said. "Jozy knows that it's a foul. I think everybody knows that it's a foul, and the ref did a mistake on this action. So there's no contestation. We take that like this, no excuses. We're going to go there and to show that we're going to fight again and we'll see at the end who will be in the final."
After his diving attempt failed to stop Michael Bradley's shot, Montreal goalkeeper Evan Bush got right up off the turf and pleaded in vain for a foul to be called.
And that was pretty much the extent of the Impact's protestations about the crucial goal, a second road tally in the span of five minutes after the Impact jumped out to a stunning 3-0 lead to the delight of the capacity crowd of 61,004.
"It's simple, we don't need to talk about it off the field," Montreal defender Laurent Ciman said. "I think we all saw Victor, everybody knows that was a foul, too. So that's it, we'll respond on the field."
Montreal coach Mauro Biello had little to say about Altidore's comments, or the other complaints he has heard out of Toronto, such as the quality of the Olympic Stadium playing surface and the possibility that gamesmanship was behind the error in the painting of the penalty area lines that caused the start of the first leg to be delayed for 30 minutes.
"There's been some comments," Biello said. "We have them and we heard them, and we're going to talk about them on the field."
