SUMMARY
MONTREAL – The arrival of Real Salt Lake in Montreal did not generate a tenth of the noise that had accompanied the visit of Inter Miami a month earlier, but the Utah club had everything to make its hosts tremble. A streak of 13 games without defeat in MLS and a star scorer, Cristian “Chicho” Arango, whose statistics had nothing to envy of those of Messi.
The opponent was formidable, therefore, and CF Montreal stood up well. There are draws that are easier to digest than others and the 0-0 that the Montreal eleven protected against the leaders of the Western Association on Saturday should belong to this category.
Montreal has not been beaten in its last four outings, since its elimination in the Canadian Championship at the end of May. Victories continue to be rare – he has only signed one, accompanied by three draws, during this streak – but there are nevertheless signs of progress.
“I’m torn between the chances we created and at the same time not being too greedy because it was a really good team in front of us,” commented coach Laurent Courtois. My feelings are a little mixed. »
“I think that on the one hand, we have to say to ourselves that this is still good what we are doing compared to a month ago. It’s a distinction that we can make, said goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois. But moving forward, we have to be realistic, we will have to take more points. Especially in the East with the current ranking. »
CF Montreal actually stood still in this regard on Saturday. He is still stagnating in 12th place, two points from the threshold to participate in the playoffs.
Sirois stopped all six RSL shots on target to earn his fourth shutout of the season. He entered his match with two divine interventions in the 24th minute. The spectacular sequence became superficial when the linesman raised his flag to signal offside, but the netminder said it nonetheless gave him the confidence to stand up to the second-best attack in MLS.
Sirois, who was left out in favor of Sebastian Breza in his team’s last match before the international break two weeks ago, finally delivered a performance as accomplished as it was encouraging. The Quebec goalkeeper had gone through a complicated month of May during which he conceded 17 goals in six starts.
“We know how decisive he can be for us. We are almost surprised sometimes by certain goals we concede or actions where we think we are so comfortable now. We know he can go very high. The stockings need to be less low,” Courtois candidly said.
The result was achieved while Montreal was deprived of the services of three usual starters. Mathieu Choinière, Samuel Piette and Ariel Lassiter were all retained in their national team in preparation for the Copa América which begins next week.
First excluded from the plans of the Canadian selection, Joel Waterman will leave his club to join the Unifolié in the coming hours.
Feedback that feels good
On the other hand, Courtois benefited from the expected return of some executives whose absence had weighed on his group in recent months. Kwadwo Opoku and Matías Cóccaro, who suffered serious knee injuries at the start of the season, both returned to training after absences of eight and 15 weeks, respectively. Mason Toye and Lassi Lappalainen, regulars at the clinic, were also back on the bench.
The entrance of all these beautiful people from the hour mark energized a match that the Impact would not have stolen if it had managed to extract three points. In Sirois’ words, “it brought a bit of chaos.”
Toye got around goalkeeper Zac MacMath in his opening minutes, only to be frustrated by a fine intervention from a defender. As for Cóccaro, he quickly showed that he had lost none of the enthusiasm that had been discovered in him. He was shown a yellow card before he had time to sweat, spoiled himself as he likes to do in duels and attempted two shots towards the opponent’s goal.
In the 70th, Sirois stepped forward to neutralize an attempt by the menacing Arango, who leads the MLS with 16 goals to his name. The dangerous Colombian only scored one of his six shots against Montreal. A few seconds later, Diego Luna hit the post to the goalkeeper’s left.
Lappalainen and Opoku came on together in the 73rd minute. The Finn whistled a shot over the bar in the 81st while “Mahala” just lacked precision after a long run down the left in the 87th.
“ [Dans nos autres 0-0 plus tôt cette saison], I don’t think we created a ton of chances, but tonight we had plenty of chances to win the game, said Waterman. They had some too. For a scoreless game, it was pretty exciting. »
After reaching the bottom of the barrel last month, CF Montreal started to offer digestible play again. He must now learn to win with regularity.
