CF Montreal head coach Wilfried Nancy, left, talks with midfielder Lassi Lappalainen during the second half of an MLS soccer match against Columbus Crew, May 1, 2021, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.The Associated Press
When Thierry Henry stepped down as head coach of CF Montreal in February, even the team’s most fanatic supporters would have been hard-pressed to see any semblance of brighter days ahead.
Although the team reached the – admittedly expanded – Major League Soccer playoffs last season for the first time in four years, it was quickly dispatched in the preliminary round. Worse, the legendary French striker-turned-manager just couldn’t seem to plug the holes in a porous back line that resulted in the team leaking the third-most goals in the league.
With that as the backdrop, the lack of incoming star players and a first-time head coach in Wilfried Nancy understandably had the preseason prognosticators feeling decided underwhelmed about Montreal’s 2021 prospects. Of an 11-person panel of experts and former players on the MLS website, eight had the rebranded Impact finishing last in the 14-team Eastern Conference, with three generously promoting it to the heady heights of 13th.
However, Montreal is going into the fourth weekend of the season riding high, sitting fourth in the conference, one of eight teams across the 27-team league yet to taste defeat. And it enters Saturday’s game against the Vancouver Whitecaps coming off the back of a goalless draw against the Columbus Crew, a game in which Nancy’s team enjoyed the majority of possession and outshot the MLS Cup defending champions 20-3, preventing them from even unleashing a shot for the first 70 minutes.
Midfielder Amar Sejdic says that Nancy’s game plan worked to perfection, albeit against an understrength Crew team that had one eye on an important CONCACAF Champions League tie in Mexico. But Columbus still had MLS Cup MVP Lucas Zelarayan pulling the strings in the middle of the park, as he was suspended for the midweek game.
“We focused on how we wanted to play and it was to keep the ball,” Sejdic says. “Make them move, make them run. … I don’t really know any individual who absolutely loves to defend for 90 minutes. … Keeping the ball is the best way to defend and that was kind of our mindset going into it.”
With Canadian international Samuel Piette out injured, Sejdic stepped into the fray to make his first start of the young season, and formed an effective midfield partnership with Kenyan international Victor Wanyama, helping to shield the back line and breaking up Columbus attacks before they could really get going.
Wanyama says it’s that added depth on the roster that is one of the big differences between this year and last, allowing international-calibre players to miss time without it negatively affecting the team too much. That, and a healthy dose of self-belief.
“I think last season the confidence of some players wasn’t that high but now they are getting their confidence and they are giving their best, so we are getting there,” Wanyama said. “It’s good.”
One thing that prevented Montreal turning one point into three against Columbus was a lack of quality finishing. Mason Toye, who had goals in each of the first two games of the season, was out injured last weekend with a thigh injury that will keep him out of Saturday’s contest as well.
Erik Hurtado drew the starting assignment in Toye’s absence, but despite accounting for three shots in the game, he was unable to convert. Still, the former Whitecap likes what he sees in his first season with Montreal.
“I think a lot of guys are really buying into what coach is telling us, and you know it’s proving to work over these last three games [as] we’re undefeated,” Hurtado says. “So we’ve just got to build on that and keep doing the things that we’re doing well.”
One of those things is to defend as a collective unit. Nancy’s stated aim when he took over from his fellow Frenchman was to implement a more up-tempo, pressing form of defence, and while it hasn’t always borne the desired results – such as in Week 2 when Montreal allowed Nashville to fight back from two down to earn a 2-2 draw – it’s generally yielded positive results.
“We had a very good discussion with the players about this situation, that we have to defend as a team and we have to attack as a team, and the more that we can get this attitude, the more it’s going to be better for us to avoid goals against us,” Nancy says.
Keeping another clean sheet this weekend, at Vancouver’s home-away-from-home in Sandy, Utah, would be further proof that Nancy has this team headed in the right direction.
And even though neither team is physically playing on Canadian soil so far this season, an all-Canadian matchup still elicits a certain response from the players, all of whom are keenly aware that Montreal is looking back at the other two franchises from north of the border in the race to the playoffs.
“Every year I look at the standings and I want us to be ahead of Toronto and Vancouver,” Piette says. “I want us to be the best team in Canada.”