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Analyst, TSN Radio 690 Montreal

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So much for not looking beyond your next game.

A lot has been made this week of Mauro Biello rolling the dice on MLS Deadline Day as the Impact head coach fielded a second-string starting eleven in the last game of the regular season. If the Impact had recorded their fifth road win of the season they stood in great shape to leapfrog D.C. United and conclude their regular season in fourth spot in the East, meaning a home date in the knockout round of this season’s MLS playoffs. With his team facing the possibility of three matches in an eight-day span, post-game at Foxboro Biello offered a very reasoned argument for resting players.

Biello’s opposite number, Ben Olson, went even further in fielding a vastly under strengthened team in Orlando last Sunday afternoon. At the kickoff, Olson’s starting eleven only included just one player who had started in their previous match; a thoroughly convincing 3-1 defeat of NYCFC. As we all know now, D.C.’s Orlando experiment failed, but Olson could care less as their rival for fourth spot in the East had one of their heaviest defeats of the season inflicted on them at Foxboro.

The mere fact two MLS head coach’s came to the same conclusion and felt it absolutely necessary to field under strength sides in their final regular-season match says everything about the folly of the MLS playoff structure.

Just ahead of Toronto FC’s October 16 match in Montreal, head coach Greg Vanney suggested on TSN Radio 690 the league should break for a week before the playoffs, explaining how a team’s season can and often unravel due to the extremely limited time between the end of the regular season and the knock out round kicking off some 72 hours later.

It’s hard to argue against Vanney’s position, especially so for the traveling team. Since the single elimination format for the first round of the playoffs was introduced by MLS back in 2011, the home team has won over 80 per cent of the time. So dominate has the home team been, including Wednesday evening’s first matches of this season’s MLS playoffs, you have to go all the way back to the 2012 playoffs for the last time a road team prevailed.

MLS history and the fact  the Impact are facing a team that was one of the very better sides in MLS until Olson pushed the pause button in Orlando last Sunday is the magnitude of what faces Biello’s team in the District of Colombia Thursday night.

Drogba’s continued absence from taking part in training sessions stretched well past the week mark, when finally Tuesday afternoon the Impact DP made a brief cameo towards the end session when he appeared alongside a therapist for a light jog away from his teammates.

Tuesday afternoon’s optimism soon soured into Wednesday morning’s confirmation Drogba would not be traveling to Obama’s hometown for Thursday evening’s match at RFK Stadium. A prolonged absence from training, plus a negative reaction to Tuesday’s light jog, put paid to Drogba’s return to a squad that to all intents and purposes, the 38-year old striker walked out on October 15.

With his contract expiring at season’s end, such a crucial 90-minutes ahead for his team, it makes you wonder even though a compromise was announced soon after Drogba’s non-appearance for the final home match of the regular season, if mentally Drogba actually checked out on his team soon after Biello informed his second highest scorer that he would not start against Toronto FC.

As the Impact has done for large parts this season, one where Drogba only started in 18 of 34 regular season games, his teammates will take to the pitch confident in their own abilities to get the job done in DC Thursday night. The players will be mindful all along that they have compiled a better record with Drogba out of the starting XI than when one of the more feared strikers of this generation has started for the Impact in 2016. 

Having the extensive big game experience for players like Ciman, Bernier and Mancosu is vital for the Impact in DC. The Bologna forward has been a revelation since signing his year-long loan deal back in early July. At the time there were many question marks about why the Impact was signing apparently another aging Italian. Contributing with vital goals and assists, the 31-year old Mancosu has been the perfect tonic to all which has ailed Drogba this season - in essence giving Biello for the first time a real option to Drogba.

They say a key battle to the outcome of any football match is that central midfield battle. The Impact can certainly dominate in this regard. Their problem, though, is their opponent much prefers making best use of the wide open spaces out on the flanks. The Impact will especially need to cut off the supply route to DC United’s top goal scorer this season, Lamar Neagle - a player who was with the Impact back in 2012. Neagle was acquired by DC in the off-season from Seattle. Additionally, the same holds true for DC’s second highest scorer this season, Patrick Mullins. Tellingly all but one of Mullins’ goals this season has come courtesy of a cross into the danger areas.

Not having to face Drogba will have been met with a wry smile by those of the DC United team tasked with defending and preventing the Impact getting on the scoresheet. In that regard, much of Thursday evening will rely on the slender shoulders of Ignacio Piatti, the Impact’s 2015 MVP who if he nets Thursday evening will have doubled his goal scoring output this season. That within itself tells you the marque of a player who has got better and better each passing season. This season the Impact and their supporters knew full well would not be dominated by a Drogba goal or two every weekend. An ever present this term the only knock on Piatti is an over tendency to not shoot enough, opting instead to over complicate things by taken one too many players on.

What is evident is the two clubs possess plenty of goals between them, with no team in the league finding the back of the net more often since the time of the All-Star break than DC United.  Conversely, in Bill Hamid and Evan Bush the two teams possess two of the very best shot stoppers in the league. The DC goalkeeper seems to relish encounters against the Impact and invariably stands on his head against his opponent Thursday evening.

For a club which beat the odds overwhelmingly in reaching a Champions League Final 18-months or so ago and playing key knock out matches in very hostile environments, the Impact won’t in any way be daunted at the size of the task. With the rapid turnaround for the first leg of the conference semi-final in mind, neither Biello nor Olson will want extra time and weary legs, let alone the possibility their season ends courtesy of the dreaded penalty shootout.

With rain expected in DC Thursday afternoon and continuing through the early evening, the pitch will play slick and fast. Here’s to not knowing the referee’s name at full time.

DC UnIted vs Montreal Impact on Thursday, Kick Off 7:30pm. Live on TSN1, TSN5 and TSN690