Bad penalty box paint job mars glorious night for MLS in Montreal

Everything appeared to be in order for possibly the greatest night in Canadian pro soccer history.

Montreal Impact and Toronto FC ready for playoff game. Check.

More than 61,000 soccer-mad fans in their seats at Montreal’s Olympic Stadium. Check.

Penalty box lines in place. Uh, wait a minute.

Well, actually wait 40 minutes as Major League Soccer’s big night in Montreal turned into a rather big embarrassment. And the Moe-Larry-Curly attempts to rectify the situation only made things worse.

The problem, somehow overlooked until just before kickoff time, was that the grounds crew preparing the Big O for the MLS Eastern Conference final had left both penalty boxes somewhat short of regulation. Actually, a lot short of regulation.

“There was a mistake of about close to two metres on each side,” a somewhat embarrassed Impact executive vice-president Richard Legendre told reporters. “It’s something that never happened and we will make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

Compounding the issue was the fact that the game officials, who detected the undersized penalty box, arrived at the stadium later than expected thanks to traffic woes. No mention was made of any road lane markings being misaligned.

Instead of watching soccer at 8:10 p.m., fans were treated to the sight of an army of workers measuring the white lines, covering them up with green spray paint, then repainting them. They cheered wildly when a worker arrived with a machine resembling a leaf blower to speed up the drying process.

Needless to say, the problem drew some notice on social media, including one tweet from the Seattle Sounders:

Amazingly, once all the lines were back in their proper places, the Impact and TFC put on a pretty good show, with the home side winning the first of a two-game final 3-2.