Having players with the requisite quality to represent their national teams is normally a great thing, except for when the international matches overlap with club games.
The Montreal Impact and Seattle Sounders, preparing for their matchup Wednesday night (7:30 pm ET | TVAS in Canada, MLS LIVE on ESPN+ in US), are profoundly affected by that.
Seattle will miss eight players to international duty (it could have been as many as 10), while the Impact are shorthanded via international duty and injuries as well. Both starting lineups will have a fresh look, adding an element of the unknown to their encounter.
Neither side are making excuses, though.
"There are a few players missing, but it doesn't apply just to us," Impact midfielder Saphir Taider said after training Tuesday. "It hasn't been easy for us since the beginning of the season, but we've always found ways to bounce back with a positive result. Saturday's game didn't go as planned, but it's up to us to pick ourselves up and start over. If we can come away with three points on Wednesday, it'll be almost forgotten."
With new-look starting XIs comes new-look chemistry.
"Offensively, we need to bring a lot of movement," Sounders midfielder Alex Roldan said. "We can't rely on some players that are big in the attacking half, so we need to all put the effort in and work as a team. I know most of us haven't played together all that often. It's going to be very important for us to have the same chemistry on the field."
Neither team enters in sterling form. The Sounders are winless in three and the Impact have one win in their last five, most recently losing 3-0 at home to Orlando City.
"It'll be important for us to rebound again from a bad performance, and we'll have to do it without the normal cast of characters," Impact goalkeeper Evan Bush said. "We'll try to get through this game and get a positive result. I have confidence that we can. Then we'll head into the three-week break and try to figure out the things that we need to ... as a group in order to move forward into the second half of the year with a mindset that there needs to be more consistency, while also drawing the positives of being able to rebound after negative performances."
The Sounders are playing their last MLS game before a break, though have an Open Cup matchup June 12 against the Portland Timbers.
"We're missing a lot of guys, important guys," outside back Kelvin Leerdam said. "If you want to move up the table, you need everybody, and we're shorthanded right now."
