In this week’s recap of Minnesotans playing professionally: Mallace makes appearances in both of Montreal’s playoff wins while Miller starts in a losing effort for Colorado.
The Montreal Impact have a long road to the MLS Cup, but seem to be well on their way. On Wednesday, the Impact traveled to take on DC United in a single elimination game to see who would advance to the Eastern Conference Semifinals. Montreal scored early and kept up the pressure, eventually holding a 3-0 lead, when Calum Mallace entered the game in the 71st minute. Despite an additional 3 goals being scored before the final whistle, for a 4-2 end result, he hardly saw the ball.
In the first leg of the semifinals Mallace repeated his second half appearance. He came on in the 69th minute to help the Impact see out a 1-0 win over the New York Red Bulls which was the first New York loss in twenty games. As in the previous game, Mallace didn’t get on the ball much, but did get a shot on target from distance. His main involvement in the game came in the 3rd minute of stoppage time when he was fouled in front of the Montreal bench by Omer Damari who was shown a straight red.
The Impact will travel to Red Bull Arena on Sunday for the second leg. New York has a very strong home record and will be pressing early to gain the advantage on combined goals.
Eric Miller and the Colorado Rapids traveled to LA to face the Galaxy in the first leg of their Western Conference semfinal matchup. Miller started in his usual spot at right back and was active on both sides of the ball. His attacking play has shown improvement and helped to build a couple of dangerous opportunities, but the Rapids found themselves on the losing side of a 1-0 finish. The attacking play of the Galaxy kept Colorado’s back line busy and Miller finished with nine recoveries, four tackles, two interceptions, and one clearance.
Colorado will host the Galaxy on Sunday at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park where they remained undefeated during the regular season, but they will need a win in order to advance to the Western Conference Finals.
While there is no news to report for Villarreal youth, Mukwelle Akale, his father Ralph tweeted a photo of him in training. It’s a slow news week.
Watched me boy train with the first team today…keep it up son! pic.twitter.com/Q6R6fJHSA5
— Ralph Akale (@ralogod) November 1, 2016
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