For the second straight year, the Vancouver Whitecaps are very close to ensuring that Toronto FC, the only MLS team in a three-team tournament, will
not earn the lone Canadian spot in the CONCACAF Champions' League.
Last year, a win and draw by Vancouver against TFC granted Montreal the opportunity to participate. (Both Vancouver and Montreal are in the second-tier USL, and the Toronto fans in their extreme class chanted "USL! USL!" as their high and mighty MLS team proceeded to lay an egg to Vancouver last year).
Montreal still owes Vancouver a favor for last year, though, when the Whitecaps did the hard part against Toronto for them. The Impact have thus far gone 0-3 in the tournament -- all the news reports seemed to take it for granted that this ensured Toronto the title before last night's game. All the Impact need do now is
not lose by 4 goals in the June 18 game against Toronto, which I might make a point to attend. If they lose by 3 or less, then Vancouver seals it.
As Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Teitur Thordarson was doing a celebratory flip on the pitch, Toronto FC head coach Chris Cummins was heading back to an explosive losers' locker room.
The TFC players, fresh off a 2-0 defeat before a standing-room crowd of 5,688 at Swangard Stadium on Tuesday, began infighting after the crushing loss in the Nutrilite Canadian Championship. Cummins fanned their flames.
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The result means that TFC, Canada’s only team in Major League Soccer, the continent’s premier professional league, must now defeat the Montreal Impact by four goals in the finale of the Canadian championship. Anything less, and the Whitecaps will add the Voyageurs Cup, named for Canada’s national soccer supporters group and presented to the tournament champion, to its United Soccer Leagues First Division title from last year.
TFC visits Montreal’s Saputo Stadium on June 18 to conclude the three-team, six-game tournament. The Impact, eliminated from the 2009 tournament after three consecutive defeats, are the defending Canadian champion.