Predicting CF Montréal’s 2024 Season
By: Anthony Tazbaz
As we are less than one week away from the start of the 2024 MLS regular season, it is time to evaluate my favourite club: CF Montréal. While a series of mediocre preseason matches (one draw, and three losses) concluded on Saturday, it is time to reflect on the club’s last six months (hint: it has been a boisterous period for CF Montréal supporters, including myself).
A Difficult (End to the) 2023 Season
On August 20 2023, coming off an underwhelming performance in the newly expanded Leagues Cup, Montréal managed to bounce back into the win column after defeating arch rivals Toronto FC 3-2 in enemy territory. Then, following a 1-0 against New England at Stade Saputo, the club began its end-of-season downfall after going winless in seven consecutive matches — four losses and three draws — and in eight out of their last nine regular season matches.
After their winless drought, Montréal gained the upper hand in the race to the play-in round of the MLS Cup Playoffs after routing the Portland Timbers by a 4-1 score in their penultimate match, which was also their final match at home. With the odds in their favour, particularly to finish eighth place and host the single-game elimination play-in match, Montréal needed to avoid a loss — with a draw, Montréal could fall to ninth place and travel for the play-in match.
To that end, Montréal would have to clear their only obstacle standing in their way on MLS Decision Day: the Columbus Crew. Despite forward Sunusi Ibrahim giving the Canadian club an early 1-0 lead, Cucho Hernandez and Darlington Nagbe propelled the Crew to a 2-1 lead, which stood until the final whistle. Despite the loss, Montréal held a grip onto ninth place in the MLS standings at the final whistle… until moments later New York Red Bulls, who were deadlocked at 0-0 with Nashville SC, were gifted a penalty in stoppage time, which was converted by John Tolkin, thus sending Montréal home following a bitter end to its tumultuous 2023 season.
In another bitter, or perhaps rather bittersweet moment for MTL supporters, the Crew — who not only handed Montréal the decisive defeat, but also acquired once-disgruntled head coach Wilfried Nancy during the 2022-23 offseason from Montréal and longtime-veteran defender Rudy Camacho in the summer (also from Montréal) — ended up winning the 2023 MLS Cup. With owner Joey Saputo having essentially chased Nancy out of Montréal during their historically impressive 2022 season, it is now Montréal’s soccer team to have its own Patrick Roy-type moment etched in club history.
A Slow, Yet Typical Offseason
In what seemingly constitutes an annual event, CF Montréal held a press conference to announce the sacking of their head coach, Hernan Losada. He was relieved of his duties (in essence, fired) due to underwhelming performances at the beginning and the end of the season and questionable decisions, such as benching captain and sole designated player Victor Wanyama during the final stretch of the season — coincidentally during their seven-game winless drought and the two final matches following that period.
Losada became ultimately the fifth head coach in CF Montréal’s 12-season history to leave the club — via sacking or resignation — after only one season (only Nancy and Mauro Biello managed to coach two full seasons with the club).
As well, the club’s first two-and-a-half months of the 2023-24 offseason — since their match against the Columbus Crew on October 21 — were characterized by inactivity and, at times, absolute silence. After declining contract options for a handful of players — including back-up goalkeeper and 2016 Montréal Impact academy graduate James Pantemis, right-back Zachary Brault-Guillard and young talent and 2020 academy graduate Sean Rea — Montréal moved slowly to acquire their first players.
Look no further than to social media posts from December 2023 to discover the early frustration of many supporters as they felt disgruntled over the slow pace of the club’s signings. During that time, they certainly took time to search tirelessly for their dream replacement to Honduran forward Romell Quioto, whose contract expired and subsequently departed for the Middle East.
First Moves
Before the end of the calendar year, the club made a couple of intra-MLS moves, first completing a trade to acquire (sorry, re-acquire) full-back Raheem Edwards from the LA Galaxy. Edwards had a brief stint as a then-Montréal Impact player in 2018, where he scored two goals before being traded to the Chicago Fire during the summer of the 2018 season. He returns to Canada as a back-up right back with the hopes of taking over the starting position.
However, Edwards would likely not play second-fiddle to 2023 CF Montréal starting right-back Aaron Herrera, who was sent to D.C. United the very next day via a position-for-position trade for Brazilian right-back Ruan. Despite an unremarkable 2023 season in the nation’s capital, many remember Ruan from his stint at Orlando City from 2019 to 2022, where he became one of the league’s most prolific offensive right-backs. Given Herrera’s equally ineffective 2023 season in Montréal, both Montréal and D.C. hope that their respective new acquisitions can get back to their old selves.
New Year Resolutions
Since January 1, Montréal doubled their recruiting efforts, starting with the hiring of Laurent Courtois from MLS Next Pro’s Columbus Crew II as their new head coach. After leading Crew II to the MLS Next Pro championship in 2022 — the league’s inaugural season — and an additional appearance in the final in 2023, Montréal will undoubtedly hope that he can replicate such successes with a relatively young squad. As demonstrated most recently by Nancy in 2021, a new head coach in Montréal can certainly flourish in their first season coaching a professional club.
A few days later, the club began completing a myriad of signings. First, the club tapped into its sister club’s roster, Serie A’s Bologna FC, and signed defender Joaquín Sosa on loan for the season and brought back goalkeeper Sebastian Breza, this time on a permanent transfer.
Sosa brings additional talent and depth to a depleted defence. Should they continue playing with a three-defender formation — such as a 3-4-3 of 3-52 formation, with full-backs part of the formation’s midfield composition), Sosa will likely compete for a starting position with George Campbell and young Colombian international Fernando Álvarez, who arrived last summer from Liga MX club Pachuca for a €750,000 fee. In contrast, Breza will fill the void in the back-up goalkeeper position, which was left by Pantemis following his declined contract option and subsequent departure to the Portland Timbers.
Significant Signings
As well, Montréal made three significant signings to bolster their attacking options.
First, they acquired Bulgarian-Canadian attacking midfielder Dominic Iankov from Ludogorets for a €1.85 million fee. After beginning last season without an experienced attacking midfielder (aka a number 10) — following the departures of Djordje Mihailović and Ismaël Koné (see our player profile in the “Ones to Watch” section on our website) — Bryce Duke and, at times, Mathieu Choinière and Matko Miljević filled the role. However, the club terminated Miljević’s contract in the summer and the team lacked consistency in offence and chances created, which resulted in Choinière and Sunusi, the club’s top scorers for 2023, each netting only six goals in all competitions.
Then, within a span of a few days, the club put the league on notice by signing Uruguyan and Venezuelan forwards Matías Cóccaro and Josef Martínez. Cóccaro, who arrived from Argentina’s Primera División club Huracán for a fee worth €1.75 million, is a well-regarded talisman that can not only score a plethora of goals, but also be an asset with respect to playmaking in the final third and the build-up to a goal.
As for Martínez, who arrived on a free transfer from Inter Miami, his resumé speaks for itself. An MLS Cup winner with Atlanta United in 2018, he also claimed the MLS Golden Boot with 31 goals (a then MLS record) and the 2018 MLS MVP award. Since then, he helped Atlanta win the 2019 U.S. Open Cup, overcame several injuries that included a torn ACL in 2020 and played with Lionel Messi and co. last season, where they won the 2023 Leagues Cup and made it to the 2023 U.S. Open Cup final before losing to the Houston Dynamo.
The additions of Cóccaro and Martínez will undoubtedly bolster Montréal’s lacklustre offence, which consists of Mason Toye, Sunusi and Jules-Anthony Vilsaint (Chinonso Offor was loaned to Bulgarian club Arda Kardzhali for the 2024 season). Both Cóccaro and Martínez should serve as ideal pieces in a three-forward formation with Kwadwo Opoku, who can serve as a playmaking forward complimenting both forwards or even as a winger that would have the same effect. Iankov will also help distribute the ball to these players, thereby increasing scoring chances.
Ultimately, as seen across both the club and MLS official social media pages and fan pages, these signings have elevated the morale of CF Montréal supporters, who suffered from a rather porous offseason a year ago.
Expert Predictions
Despite hiring a new coach with tremendous upside and completing major signings to bolster their offence and add depth elsewhere in the squad, many MLS experts/analysts placed the club’s position in the MLS standings among the lowest in the Eastern Conference, which consists of 15 clubs. Most analysts that participated in predictions for clubs’ 2024 regular season performances placed Montréal between 11th and 14th place, with former Portland Timbers play-by-play broadcaster Jake Zivin predicting the club to finish at the bottom of the Eastern Conference (15th place).
However, two analysts — Kaylyn Kyle and Frédéric Lord — ranked the club at ninth place, which would be sufficient to squeeze into the play-in match of the MLS Cup Playoffs as the away team. Both Kyle and Lord are Canadian, with the latter having worked as a broadcaster for Québec-based TVA Sports, which held near-exclusive rights to CF Montréal’s TV rights for several years before AppleTV came collecting their rights (see his previous work here).
Personal Prediction
In my honest opinion, these experts have once again placed the club below what could be a less dire reality. Ahead of the 2021 season — after Thierry Henry resigned as head coach and the club was forced to play the first half of their home games in Fort Lauderdale due to the COVID-19 pandemic and border restrictions in Canada — nearly all experts/analysts placed Montréal at the bottom of the league (13-14th place). In reality, the club finished in 10th place, having just missed out on the playoffs following a 2-0 loss against Orlando on the final matchday. Nevertheless, Montréal surpassed expectations and then went on to win the 2021 Canadian Championship against Toronto FC.
Against this backdrop and an impressive offseason, I expect Montréal to finish in the lower half of clubs that qualify for the playoffs. While Kyle and Lord predict Montréal finishing ninth in the East, I fancy their chances to finish higher; perhaps in seventh or eighth place in the East. Although it may only be one to two positions above ninth place, it makes a massive difference, one underscored by either a home play-in match rather than one on the road, or a bye to the conference quarterfinals.
Although I posited a harsh prediction in my article “Top 5 Predictions for 2024” (read article here) — whereby all Canadian clubs would miss the 2024 MLS Cup Playoffs — I acknowledged that the prediction may be premature due to most MLS clubs having yet to complete most of their offseason signings. With that being said, I shall swallow my pride and declare that CF Montréal is a playoff calibre club. And once qualified for the postseason, you never know the outcome; from a heartbreaking exit to a heartwarming championship.
