By Canadian Press

CF Montreal hosts Charlotte looking to salvage points from crucial week

Jul 14, 2023 | 11:17 AM

MONTREAL — An offensively stunted CF Montreal is desperately looking to get any points out of this crucial week in the Major League Soccer season when it hosts Charlotte FC on Saturday evening.

Montreal (8-12-2) has faltered over a sequence of games that could have gone a long way in cementing its place in the Eastern Conference playoff race. In the club’s last four games—all against opposition involved in the race to the post-season—Montreal has come up with a single draw and three losses while extending its goalless drought to 423 minutes.

“There have to be lessons learned from these games, especially when it’s against teams close in the standings” said head coach Hernan Losada. “It’s not the time to overanalyze our opponents, we need to look internally. We need to look at what we need to improve, how to score more, and start picking up clean sheets again.”

The game against Charlotte will be Montreal’s last before a one-month break from MLS action due to the Leagues Cup that will run from July 21 until Aug. 19. Entering that pause on the right foot will be not only be crucial for Montreal’s Leagues Cup run, but for the final stretch of the regular season that succeeds it.

Charlotte (6-8-8) has also had trouble winning of late, having picked up three points just once in its last 10 games. But it has also been very difficult to beat with five straight draws.

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“They’re a dangerous team with a lot of quality attackers and they play with a lot of intensity, so we’ll have to match that,” said defender Aaron Herrera, who returned from his first senior call-up to the Guatemalan national team for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. “One of my good friends Justin Meram plays for them and plays on my side so that’ll be a fun little battle.”

The last time the two teams faced off, they played to a 0-0 draw at Bank of America Stadium with very little between both sides – a good result for Montreal as its road and home form at the time were as different as night and day.

However, Montreal has lost its three games since and suffered consecutive losses at home for the first time since the 2020 with defeats to New York City FC and Atlanta.

In its most recent loss Wednesday, 3-0 to the Fire in Chicago, Montreal benefitted from its highest total of possession this season at 62 per cent. However, it struggled to consistently establish itself deep in Chicago’s defensive third throughout the game and was exposed to the counterattack a number of times—most notably during Chicago’s first two goals.

“Our focus moves to our home stadium, and we have to work on improving in the final third because a good result before a long MLS break is so important.” said midfielder Nathan Saliba. “We need a bit more serenity with the ball, take our chances, and be a bit more on the same page in those situations.”

While Montreal must surely appreciate the time between games in order to prepare and rest the squad, it may also be a causes for concern. Montreal had its best run of the season at a time where its schedule was at its most congested, when losses were immediately put out of mind and wins were used as fuel for the following game.

Since that run ended, Montreal has not been able to string together multiple strong performances and is looking at this quick turnaround as a possible solution.

“It’s a similar situation (to the game after the Canadian Championship final against Vancouver) where we had a lot of travelling and not much time to prepare for the match against Minnesota, but we played very well,” Losada said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2023.

Elias Grigoriadis, The Canadian Press