“We took it seriously this evening,” said Impact gaffer Marco Schallibaum. “They played aggressively with a lot of will. With a little luck we could have scored five or six. We fought through to the end.”

“Piscu” spent less time in the game than Schallibaum had expected he would. Turfed in the 45th minute for a late, studs-up, tackle from behind on Cordoba, his absence forced Montreal to send in Hassoun Camara and pull Felipe from the midfield as it became a 10-man side for the balance of the match.

The referees are on strike in Scotland. They have had it. They’ve had it with the criticisms of coaches and players. They’re tired of being made the scapegoats whenever a close decision goes against a fiery manager with an axe to grind. Good for them. They’ve gone on strike, leaving the Scottish FA scrambling to find refs for this week’s matches. Polish and Portuguese refs who the SFA thought it had secured to officiate this weekend’s games have gone back home. Scotland did find enough foreign refs to keep the Premier League going, so fans could be treated another weekly instalment of Rangers, Celtic and Everybody Else.