Match Preview: Vancouver Whitecaps vs Montreal Impact

On Wednesday July 18th the Vancouver Whitecaps face the Impact de Montreal in Stade Saputo.

The match is only available via stream at 4:30 pm PST on CanadaSoccer.com or on TSN 1040.

Wednesday’s tilt marks the second year in a row the Caps will face the Impact in Canadian Championship play. The Caps were beaten 5-4 in the two game series last season. They will look for redemption from that loss, and also from the more recent loss to DC last weekend. With the inconsistencies we’ve seen lately it remains to be seen which team will show up.

Expect the Caps to start a fairly Canadian Centric line-up; Alphonso Davies, Doneil Henry, Russell Teibert, Marcel de Jong and Brett Levis are all available. As are David Norman Jr, Simon Colyn, and Sean Melvin. There is even an outside chance that the Caps could give some field time to their newly minted Home Grown midfielder Michael Baldissimo. I haven’t watched Baldisimo play, but he draws comparisons to the likes of Felipe according to Farhan Devji.

Russel Teibert will likely be making his 20th appearance in the Canadian Champioinships, the most of any player in the competition. Rusty may be a bit rusty himself however as he has not started a match since May 26th, and has only played 19 minutes as a sub since that start. It’s worth noting that the last time Russel played against the Impact he had an assist and played possibly his best game of the season. I expect Russel to have a strong veteran presence in this match. He will be a key cog in stopping the Impact attack, and jump-starting the Caps counter.

The Impact on the other hand have just sold off one of their better Canadian midfielders, Raheem Edwards. Edwards is off to the Chicago Fire and the return appears to be 400k in targeted allocation money. Canadians actually available for the Impact are; Samuel Piette, Anthony Jackson-Hamel, Michael Petrasso, Shamit Shome, and Louis Béland-Goyette. As well as a pair of untested keepers James Pantemis, and Jason Beaulieu. Montreal has also just added a Canadian to their roster, academy player Mathieu Choniere has signed his first pro contract and graduated to the first team.