For the Montreal Impact to pull off the Play-In Round upset Friday night (6:30 pm ET | TV & streaming info) at the New England Revolution, they’ll need several central midfielders to step up.
Victor Wanyama will miss out upon return from international duty with Kenya (COVID-19 quarantine protocols), while Samuel Piette is serving a red-card suspension that he suffered on Decision Day presented by AT&T. Wanyama joined this past March as a Designated Player from Tottenham Hotspur, while Piette often wears the armband for Montreal.
“It's going to be a tough one,” head coach Thierry Henry said in the buildup. “Again, like the start of our season, we're going to be missing key players. New England had to do the same thing throughout the season. We're not going to be sitting here saying who isn't playing, we're going to focus on who is playing and what we can do.”
Some solutions look to be Amar Sejdic and Emanuel Maciel, though the veteran duo’s absence will be felt. It also contributes to Henry calling Montreal, the Eastern Conference’s No. 9 seed, the clear underdog.
“Obviously we are underdogs,” Henry said. “They're a very good team, they have MLS experience, so it's going to be a tough one at the end of the day. But we're going to try to perform, it doesn't matter who's playing.”
Even further, New England are 3W-1L-0D against Montreal this year and have won three straight. They’ll also have their three DPs – midfielder Carles Gil and forwards Adam Buksa and Gustavo Bou – together after injuries limited their potential for final-third fireworks this season.
How Henry views it, though, New England’s DPs are only part of the picture. He has respect for the entire roster head coach/sporting director Bruce Arena can pull from.
“People were asking me before about how they're going to have all their DPs,” Henry said. “They beat us without some of their DPs, we lost against them with the players that we are missing to play against them tomorrow. So that doesn't mean anything. It's going to be a different game, it's going to be a tough game, great coach, great team with MLS experience. It's not going to be easy.”
Nonetheless, Montreal forge ahead into Gillette Stadium with an underdog mentality and trying to knock off the East’s No. 8 seed. What lies ahead is the chance to play another game, either against No. 1 Philadelphia Union or No. 2 Toronto FC in Round One.
If that happens, it’d be the continuation of a season that’s made life difficult for Montreal. Most of their home games were played at Red Bull Arena, home of the New York Red Bulls, and results proved difficult down the stretch (3W-9L-1D) to close the year.
“On a human level it was difficult for the reasons that you know, but we managed to find ourselves in this situation to play against New England, a team that we've struggled to beat recently,” Henry said. “But that's the story of this season, we have to go there again with the situation that we are missing key players. They had to deal with it also for the whole year.
“It's going to be a game, might be extra time, might be penalties, who knows what's going to happen but we are going to have to be ready for that no matter what happened this year or what's happening now.”
