Doneil Henry and Andrew Wiedeman scored at opposite ends of the second half as Reggie Lambe’s Toronto FC teammates drew first blood against the Montreal Impact in their opening Semi-Final leg of the Amway Canadian Championship at BMO Field.
With both teams facing a busy slate of fixtures in the coming weeks, Toronto and Montreal each elected to rest several of their most prominent starters, with Robert Earnshaw, Marco Di Vaio, Lambe and Alessandro Nesta not dressing for the game and Darren O’Dea taking a place on the TFC bench.
The technical ability of those four veteran players was clearly missed during a spirited but sloppily played first half in which the lone genuine scoring chance came on a well placed 18th minute free kick from TFC midfielder John Bostock that required a diving save from Impact keeper Evan Bush, making his first appearance of the season for the Impact.
After struggling to generate scoring chances in the opening forty-five minutes, Toronto came to life early in the second half with a run of play that culminated with Montreal unable to completely clear the ball from their box and Henry, a center back, delivering a strike any forward would be proud of, past Bush into the top left corner of the Impact net.
A Toronto substitute would influence the match and play a key role in clinching the result for the home side, with attacking midfielder Luis Silva threading a beautiful pass to Wiedeman, who made no mistake in putting his shot past Bush in the 81st minute.
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