Montreal's 2012 MLS SuperDraft picks both made highlights this weekend.
While Andrew Wenger scored two quality goals as Philadelphia beat San Jose, Calum Mallace provided one of the assists of the week despite Montreal losing 4-2 at New York Red Bulls.
The curled first-time pass earned him Pass of the Week honors from MLSsoccer's own Matt Doyle. It sent three Red Bulls defenders backpedaling as Dilly Duka dribbled down the left and finished low, near post.
“Being a midfielder, they want you to switch the play as much as possible,” Mallace told MLSsoccer.com in a postgame phone interview. “For that specific play, it was just set up perfectly: I had time in the midfield, I took that look over my shoulder and I saw Dilly was there. So as the ball came, I knew I was going to play it first time. I switched it, that’s my job. It came off, and we ended up getting a goal from it.”
It was probably Mallace’s best moment in an Impact shirt. Drafted 20th overall in 2012, Mallace spent most of his rookie year learning how to play right back before eventually returning to his favored central midfield spot. A successful loan spell at Minnesota United in the second half of the 2013 season set him up for a return to Montreal in 2014. He’s already played more MLS minutes this season than in the previous two combined.
There was good – that pass to Duka, his discreet part in building up Marco Di Vaio’s best chance of the game – and not-so-good – the fluffed clearance seconds before Thierry Henry completed his brace – in New York. But his assist fit within what's worked best for Montreal since their expansion year: swift transitions through the middle, without bypassing it – though Mallace says there’s much more to Montreal’s play than that.
“We’re a team that wants to play,” Mallace said. “We’ve said that from the beginning. We don’t just want to play long and direct like some teams in this league and some teams in the world. That’s our way of doing it. We want to get the ball down, play through the middle, switch the play, get it wide, back in, to the forwards, all those things. That’s how it’s been from the start. Everyone knows what we need to do and when we do it well like that, we score goals and it's nice."
