Marco Di Vaio, the Montreal Impact’s first Designated Player, has been in town for less than 24 hours. But if the reception he received when he emerged from the secure area of Dorval’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport Sunday night and the plaudits that were tossed his way at Monday afternoon’s press introduction are any indication, he might just be able to cross the St. Lawrence River on foot in the summertime.

Make no mistake. Castrillon’s goal was one of the weirdest you will ever see. But it should never, ever have counted. Why? It came after referee Mark Kadlecik blew the whistle and indicated that the ball was out of play.

Eckersley is a classic example of the type of athlete who is popular in Toronto. A journeyman kinda guy who works exceptionally hard. He fits the archetype of a Dan Gargan, John McDonald, Matt Bonner, James Reimer — working-class guys who blow up in a Toronto market that eats superstars alive but worships the depth-chart players.

As for that July schedule Montreal goes to Philadelphia on the 14th, hosts New England on the 18th, travels to Houston on the 21st and hosts the Red Bulls on the 28th. With so many games around the date of the friendly, some serious questions would need to be asked of the Impact if any of the first-team regulars get significant minutes for a revenue-generating friendly.

Saturday’s match also ended with a Red Bulls victory, this time a 2-1 triumph that had some of the 20,373 vocally registering their displeasure at the Impact’s inability to get the desired result, even after seeing the New York side play with 10 men for the final half hour of the game.

The Montreal Impact announced Monday that forward Stefan Vukovic will have three more months to try and impress the club.

“I think we actually did a pretty good job in the second half. Actually the whole game wasn’t too bad, the second half was great,” Landon Donovan offered. “I’m guessing that if it was any of a number of other goalkeepers playing for them today it would have been a different score and we would have won but Donovan did a good job and they held on. I think a few players thought they had him on a few plays but he made some good saves and got them a point.”

TFC scored its first victory of any sort at BMO Field this season, beating the Impact by a 2-0 score to send the Reds into the Voyageurs Cup final and handing Montreal another disappointing result in the national tournament.

A match against SKC? Sure loss, right? Wrong. The Impact won its first ever road game, 2-0 over the hosts and, frankly, put together the most impressive 90 minutes in the club’s short MLS history.

Playing to a draw is usually the best a road team can hope for. Toronto FC came out of the first leg of its Amway Canadian Championship encounter with the Montreal Impact having achieved its objective, playing to a scoreless tie and setting the stage for next Wednesday’s second game.