With our domestic game returning in earnest, we’ve been catching up with our man in Major League Soccer as the North American league returns to action.
You’ll remember that Luis Binks from Gillingham is this season playing for Montreal Impact who are bossed by Premier League legend Thierry Henry, and the Impact have just returned to action as Luis told us.
“We played our first game on the 25th of August against Vancouver and it felt amazing to be back,” the young central defender admitted. “Not only was it great to be back playing it was great to be in the Stade Saputo for the first team (our home ground) with 250 fans being allowed in to watch. To top it off we got the win so that was a night to remember in my short career so far.”
Luis is still coming to terms with the news that in January he’ll be swapping the MLS for Serie A in Italy with Bologna – who are also owned by the same owner as the Impact.
We asked Luis how his team-mates had reacted to the news, “They’ve all congratulated me and said well-done which is nice to hear,” he said.
“Sometimes when players move on to maybe a different league or a team player can take it in the wrong way, but everyone’s been brilliant! No advice has been given to me yet as like I said before I’m a Montreal player for now so my job is to win games and do my bit for Montreal but Taider who played in Bologna said to me to get learning the language ASAP.”
Turning to the games that Impact have played since restart, Luis took us through them starting with game against Vancouver, “it was my first home game, so it was nice to get the win and also as a defender keep a clean sheet. We played some really good football and defended really well, and I don’t think they had many good chances to score which is always good as it means we must be doing our job as a unit/team.”
Their second game was a single goal defeat to arch-rivals Toronto. “It was a very harsh one,”
Luis admitted. “The penalty they were awarded was hard for our player to avoid, as the ball popped up after a challenge and struck him on the arm so there was not a lot he could do about it given the new rules and not ball to hand, a new rule that I don’t quite understand as if it’s not blatant and not blatantly stopping a goal I don’t see how it can be awarded but it was and we gave the perfect response in Toronto.”
Indeed, they did and at the same time ended the MLS’s longest unbeaten run too. “Yeah I think they were going for a joint record of 18 unbeaten so it was great to stop that,” Luis said.
The game was played during the week of his 19th birthday and his coach heaped praise on the birthday boy for a stunning performance. Modestly Luis told us, “it was nice to hear the manager say that but like he said everyone played really well and done their job. I was just one of 20 players who contributed including the subs but like you say it was nice to hear the manager say that”
“The game itself saw us play some really good football. We saw how they played v us at home a few days prior so we had a chance to correct things that we felt wasn’t right and areas in which we could exploit them, and we did that. If we took our chances, we maybe could have gone into the break 3 or 4 up but on the flip side Diop our GK kept it at 1-0 with an outstanding save.”
Impact now face two return games with Vancouver but beyond that, as Luis told us, the Canadian side still don’t know if they will be allowed entry into the USA to continue their season.
“We haven’t been told as of yet so I suppose we just have to monitor the current situation in America and Canada and hopefully it improves and if it does so we’re be allowed to play US based teams to complete the season.”
Join us next time as Luis Canadian adventure with the Impact continues…