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Montreal Impact forward Anthony Jackson-Hamel, left, battles for the ball with Toronto FC defender Drew Moor during their match in Toronto on Wednesday.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

There was one big hiccup Wednesday night in Toronto FC's march to a record Major League Soccer season.

The Montreal Impact embarrassed a disorganized group of Reds by a 5-3 score in front of their own fans at BMO Field. It was their first loss at home this season. That put at least a temporary halt to TFC's bid to top the Los Angeles Galaxy's record 68 points for one season. The Reds remain at 62 with four games left in the regular season.

Given the relentless march of the Reds through MLS this season – they went into the game with a six-game winning streak, unbeaten in their last 11 games and unbeaten at home – perhaps something like the first half from hell was bound to happen. Granted, TFC was missing strikers Sebastian Giovinco (quadriceps strain) and Jozy Altidore (hamstring) and midfielder Victor Vazquez (fever).

It may have been the slick playmaker Vazquez the Reds missed the most. The Spaniard has been the two-way glue for TFC in his first MLS season and the Reds looked absolutely lost all night. It was as if the previous months of ruling the MLS roost with an 18-3-8 record coming into the game were all a mirage.

"It was mistakes," TFC head coach Greg Vanney said. "We had uncharacteristic mistakes for this team this year. It was like we brought them all out in one game. Let's hope that's the case."

TFC started the game playing like a Sunday morning pickup squad whose players had no idea what any of them were going to do next. It was just the tonic for the Impact, who were playing so bad leading up to the game that their owner, cheese magnate Joey Saputo, blasted the players, coaches and managers in a statement last weekend.

"Our team's latest performance has clearly fallen short of our expectations," Saputo said after his team lost 3-2 at home to the expansion Minnesota United. "Rest assured that this message has been conveyed to the technical staff and the players ..."

That loss marked a four-game losing streak for the Impact, who were six points out of the playoffs with six games left when the TFC game started. Now they are three points behind the New York Red Bulls in the race for the last playoff spot, although the Red Bulls have one game in hand.

Given the Reds' general ineptitude, it is hard to say if Saputo's statement lit a fire under the Impact. But before the game was 25 minutes old, the seat under Montreal coach Mauro Biello was considerably less hot than it was the day before.

The fun started in the 10th minute with a strange goal when TFC defender Eriq Zavaltea probably should have cleared the ball but decided to drop it back to goaltender Alexander Bono instead. For some reason, Bono decided it would be a good idea just to kick it, despite the presence of Impact star Ignacio Piatti standing a few metres in front of him. The ball hit Piatti and bounced straight into the net.

Two minutes later, Zavaleta gave away the ball and it wound up with Impact midfielder Marco Donadel in the middle. He had all the time he needed to rip a 22-metre shot that curved to the inside of the post and bounced in. Despite the steam on the shot, Bono was still caught looking.

Zavaleta completed his miserable night in the 24th minute after Reds captain Michael Bradley got in on the fun. His giveway started a Montreal rush and when Zavaleta fell, Piatti had the time he needed to unload a long rocket to the far corner.

Vanney, who happens to be Zavaleta's uncle, mercifully ended his nightmarish evening by pulling him for Ben Spencer after Piatti's second goal. Vanney said it was a tactical move not a punitive one, that he wanted Spencer, a forward, in the game to boost the Reds' ailing attack.

The coach had a few words on the sideline for his nephew, who seemed distressed at the hook. "It was a total tactical substitution. It had nothing to do with how he was playing on the field. That was my point to him," Vanney said.

The last time the Reds were down 3-0 to Montreal was in the first leg of the MLS Eastern Conference final last November. They came back to score two late goals in that game and then win the conference in overtime of the second leg.

TFC midfielder Jonathan Osorio gave rise to hopes of similar heroics when he danced his way around the box and bounced a ball into the net off Montreal defender Deian Boldor for an own goal in the 42nd minute. Vanney admitted to such thoughts.

"I didn't initially but there was a break in the action and I started to think we do this a fair amount with these guys, where we give them an early cushion and then we try to fight our way back," the coach said. "Better to do that now than to do it at a different time. Hopefully one of the silver linings out of this is we recognize we have to be in top form down the stretch."

But any thoughts of a comeback were quickly snuffed out by the Impact in the second half. Well, it could also be said the Reds smothered those hopes since they continued to suffer from self-inflicted wounds. More defensive gaffes – lazy, ill-advised back passes - allowed Anthony Jackson-Hamel to score two easy goals in the 47th and 51st minutes to put the visitors ahead 5-1.

By this time, some spectators amused themselves by setting off fireworks that covered the field with smoke at times or booing their heroes for one of the few times in recent seasons. Then Tosaint Ricketts distracted them with two quick goals in the 77th and 79th minutes to cut the Montreal lead to 5-3.

But it was a momentary distraction, as the Impact settled down and rode out the win. The only good thing to take out of the game, said Bradley, is that the Reds play again Saturday against the host New England Revolution so they can flush this game from their system.

"We're lucky we get to turn around quickly and play," Bradley said. "We've got to use this game in the right way to understand when our mentality and our concentration and our willingness to play every minute at the highest level, when all that is there, we've got a damn good team. The margins tilt in our favour in a big way. The second that stuff slows down, starts to drop, it goes the other way real quick."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Theresa May attended a wheelchair basketball event in Ottawa on Monday ahead of the opening of the Invictus Games in Toronto on Saturday.

The Canadian Press

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