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.

“They’re just here for a week and they’re heading back to Italy tomorrow. I saw my mother but my father was probably walking around the stadium somewhere. He has a difficult time watching me play.”

Montreal coach, Jesse Marsch, fielded a reworked starting XI to begin the game against Toronto FC. The decisions paid off as the Impact got off to a good start, grabbed a lead in the early going and held it — despite giving up a goal in the late going — to put its historic first MLS win into the books.

Fucito scored six goals in all competitions last year; Neagle scored five in MLS and then added another playoff marker in the Western Conference semifinal loss to Real Salt Lake. Three of Neagle's goals came in an August win over Columbus.

The Montreal Impact now has its fourth player under contract for the 2012 MLS season, and copy editors around Canada will curse the club for it.

The Montreal Impact will not take part in the NASL playoffs. Sure, the Impact did its part — crushing the last-place Atlanta Silverbacks by a 4-0 count on the final day of the regular season. But, the NSC Minnesota Stars preserved its one-point advantage over the Impact with a 2-1 win on the road over the first-place Carolina RailHawks.

Undistracted from the task at hand in tonight’s match against the visiting FC Edmonton, getting the three points needed to close the gap between them and Minny, the Impact came through in the clutch with a 2-0 win and has almost climbed out of the hole that it has dug for itself with its dismal play in the first half of the season. Montreal is now just a single point behind Minnesota with each team having a game left on the schedule. Montreal owns the tiebreaker between the two teams.

As it turned out, things went a lot better for the Strikers than they did for the Impact. The teams avoided a third sister-kissing result with the home side coming away with their desired result in a 1-0 contest.

FC Edmonton gave up a heartbreaking injury-time goal in 3-2 loss in Puerto Rico, while the Montreal Impact cruised to a 2-0 victory in Minnesota.

Only four of the dozen men who took to the pitch dressed in Impact blue for the team’s 2-0 triumph Saturday against the visiting NSC Minnesota Stars were participants in Montreal’s season opener in April.