The unexpected success of the United Soccer Leagues’ Montreal Impact in Concacaf Champions League group play has raised a logistical issue the team hadn’t previously worried about. If the team continues its good form and qualifies for the competition’s home-and-away quarterfinal, where would it play the home game in the middle of winter?
“We’ve started to look, but it’s not easy finding a place,” Impact vice-president Richard Legendre said. “We don’t have a solution yet. We’re in a position where we really have to look at the possibilities because with us being right up there, it’s now more than a possibility of moving on.” He said a quarterfinal could be played indoors, providing the “space was big enough.” Although Olympic Stadium would be the best option, there have been no on-field activities there for the past nine winters, and a stadium spokesman said, “At this point, I don’t think it can happen.”
Legendre added that beating CD Olimpia of Honduras 2-1 Wednesday for the Impact’s first win on foreign soil (presumably excluding the U.S.) “is really quite an accomplishment. It’s great for soccer in Quebec and for the USL [United Soccer Leagues] because USL teams are doing well in the Champions League and the MLS teams not so well. It shows that the product we have here has quality.”