Two of Major League Soccer’s best midfielders will face off for the first time in MLS play on Saturday when Ignacio Piatti and the Montreal Impact host Nicolas Lodeiro and the Seattle Sounders at the Olympic Stadium (4 p.m. PT; JOEtv, ROOT Sports outside Seattle, KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM).
Lodeiro and Piatta have faced each other before in the 2014 Copa Libertadores, South America’s international club championship. Lodeiro was playing for Brazil’s Botafogo and Piatti for Argentina’s San Lorenzo. In the second game between them, Piatti scored twice and was voted the Man of the Match before leading his club to the Libertadores title.
Piatti has been one of the league’s best playmakers since he arrived in Montreal in 2014, not long after winning with San Lorenzo. He has scored 35 goals and added 18 assists in 73 regular-season and postseason matches. He tallied 17 goals last season alone and like Lodeiro, Piatti operates from out wide and pulls the strings offensively at an elite level.
“We need to be careful and close him down,” Lodeiro said of Piatti. “He’s a great player and he is very important for Montreal.”
Lodeiro has enjoyed just as much success in his brief time in MLS, earning Newcomer of the Year honors last year after playing in just 13 regular-season matches. Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said Lodeiro and Piatti perhaps don’t operate as true No. 10s because of their positions on the flank, but their abilities to create and spark the offense is incredibly impressive.
“[Lodeiro and Piatti are] exceptionally talented players and both are integral parts of their team,” Schmetzer said. “So for all the soccer purists, it is a thing of beauty to watch sometimes the things that both those players can accomplish on the field.”
Lodeiro and Piatti each represent a singular matchup within a more macro 3-on-3 offensive tilt. Before Clint Dempsey was shut down last August, he, Lodeiro and Jordan Morris formed a lethal attacking trio highlighted by a virtuoso performance in a 3-1 road win over Orlando City SC. Dempsey bagged all three goals in a match that many Sounders consider the turning point of last season that spring-boarded their run to the playoffs and MLS Cup.
The Impact sport their own menacing attacking threesome in Piatti, Dominic Oduro and Matteo Mancosu, who combined for 10 goals and seven assists in just five postseason matches last year. They were kept in check in a 1-0 road loss to the San Jose Earthquakes in Week 1, but all three were the catalysts behind the Impact’s near MLS Cup Final appearance in 2016 and are more than capable of a moment of brilliance.
“[Whoever] can control the midfield,” said Schmetzer, “is always going to play a big part in the game.”
