MONTREAL -- Ignacio Piatti extended his goal-scoring streak to five games, but even he couldn't prevent an otherwise frustrating afternoon for himself and the Montreal Impact in a 3-1 loss to MLS leaders Toronto FC at Stade Saputo on Sunday.
Piatti scored in injury time in the second half to draw Montreal within a goal, but Toronto's Sebastian Giovinco completed a brace moments later to end the Impact's four-game winning streak.
That it took Piatti until stoppage time to break through was a credit to the Reds' ability to shut down his recent magical play.
"For sure after watching him the last few weeks, they attacked a lot from the left side, keep the ball away from Nacho, and when Nacho gets the ball they double-teamed and triple-teamed and closed the space down," Montreal coach Mauro Biello said. "And credit to them, they did a good job, and when you get closed down like that for sure you get a little bit frustrated. But in the end we pulled that goal back and unfortunately they scored right away because I felt there was one more chance in us maybe to even tie it."
Giovinco gave Toronto a 1-0 lead 41 minutes in when he scored on a free kick awarded after Jozy Altidore was fouled by Impact midfielder Blerim Dzemaili.
Impact midfielder Patrice Bernier felt Montreal could have had the 1-0 lead at the half.
"But we were a bit sloppy, we did a lot of technical mistakes where we gave the ball back freely," Bernier said. "They're a good team so you have to be on your A-game like we have the last weeks. We know we didn't play our best game so at the end of the day it's a loss, a loss to a very good team, and now we have to regroup next week and work well to get back to winning ways."
Altidore scored in the 52nd minute to put the Impact down by two.
"They have very good players, one of which is able to punish teams from dead-ball situations," Montreal left back Daniel Lovitz said. "And when you have a guy like that and he's able to put teams in an awkward situation in the game by scoring a goal like that, it kind of makes it hard to compete on an even level. But I'm not going to sit here and complain. We have Nacho, we have guys that are very capable of hurting teams in the same way.
"So on the day I think they were a little bit better than us, of course, and some of their quality showed and ours was left wanting a bit, but there's an evident gap I think between the two teams and a lot of teams that they played," he continued. "But it's up to us to find little ways to close that gap. As a club, as players, as a team, I think everyone should take pride in looking at this game and maybe using it as a measuring stick. We're all disappointed but we're realistic about what happened out there and we're going to look at it and move forward."
