CF Montreal couldn’t resist Atlanta United FC, even with ten players, and settled for a 3-3 draw on Saturday to collect their first point of the season.
Montreal had given itself a 3-1 lead after a thundering first half from Ismaël Koné, but couldn’t hang on to that lead. Montreal, however, played 23 minutes with the advantage of a man after a red card to Dom Dwyer.
Atlanta were playing hard and Thiago Almada made things interesting by scoring his first MLS goal with a superb strike in the 85th minute.
Then Brooks Lennon took advantage of a free kick to beat Sebastian Breza in the upper part. The Montreal goalkeeper was slow to leave his line, brushed the ball with his fingers, which lodged in the upper part.
It was a heartbreaking draw, especially since the prospects of success were slim for the team which arrived in Georgia decimated and tired after a tight match against Cruz Azul in midweek.
Due to injuries, Wilfried Nancy has 19 players on his roster, one shy of the 20 allowed. He had no substitute striker.
Montreal got off to a good start, but things went off the rails pretty quickly.
Ismaël Koné did not give a glimpse of what was going to happen when, playing a little softly, he gave the ball to Josef Martinez, who charged at a too advanced Sebastian Breza to open the scoring in the 6th minute.
But Koné had a great game in his legs. The young man ignored adversity and moved into second gear by raising his game a few notches.
In the 28th minute, Koné made a long pass to Djordje Mihailovic, who found himself two against zero with Joaquin Torres. He opted to hold onto the ball and fake out to tie up goaltender Brad Guzan, then shoot into an empty net.
Nine minutes later (37th), he sent a diagonal to Lassi Lappalainen and then rushed towards the net, where he picked up the Finn’s pass to thwart Guzan.
And the climax came in the 41st minute, when he extracted a penalty shot that Romell Quioto turned into his first goal of the season in the 43rd.