By Canadian Press

CF Montreal still looking for first win but sticking to Donadel’s system

Apr 12, 2025 | 10:26 PM

MONTREAL — As the final whistle blew and CF Montreal fell 1-0 to visiting Charlotte FC at Stade Saputo on Saturday, the sobering reality of how much work remains to be done began to set in.

“It definitely hurts more because we’re at home,” said captain Samuel Piette. “The last games were very interesting and we knew that at home you can go chase those three points, especially early in the season.

“It’s frustrating because you know that you deserve a better result, but the way we played and controlled the match is also encouraging.”

After ending their customary early-season road trip with a winless record, just four goals to their name, and a fired head coach, it would be easy to blame the lack of a home crowd advantage. Seeing as how CF Montreal really hadn’t played that poorly and not all the context was available from a simple scoreline, that’s what many did.

Seven consecutive away games after a two-month training camp is far from an optimal way to start your season, and it showed as Montreal dropped all but two points despite putting up admirable performances.

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Such showings led to optimism about the club’s long-awaited home opener, where they would finally be able to take the shackles off and play the attractive and progressive style of soccer that they advertised.

Instead, an eerily familiar lack of finishing spoiled the party and contributed to a sixth loss on the season. Once again, it came down to the common denominator of their struggles this year: finishing. Montreal dominated nearly every facet of play in the game, but still came away with a goalless loss, further extending the gap between expected and scored goals — already a league worst.

“Numbers are just numbers. The most important number is the result, and we didn’t score,” said interim head coach Marco Donadel. “We tried everything, we need a little bit of (good luck) and it could be four or five goals.

“I’m sure that continuing this way, we’ll have a game where we have 20 shots and we score six and it’s ‘Wow, what an amazing team.'”

With just three games under Donadel and his new system, it is clear that the team has embraced his philosophy of open and high-flying attack, but without the conversion into goals, their susceptibility to the counterattack once again cost them a win.

Piette was not discouraged by the lack of success under Donadel’s leadership.

“I would rather play the way we play and not get points knowing we’re doing the right thing and putting chances on our side than playing like Charlotte did and just sit back just hope for the other team to make a mistake,” said Piette. “I think the way we play is very interesting for us players and for the fans as well, it’s exciting and we create a lot of chances.

“Sometimes it goes in, sometimes it doesn’t.”

The arrival of attacking signings Hennadiy Synchuk and Giacomo Vrioni showed more of the club’s potential when everyone is fit and firing as the two revitalized the Montreal attack in the closing stages of the game.

UP NEXT

Both teams will be back in action at home on Apr. 19.

Montreal will host Orlando City SC while Charlotte faces San Diego FC.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2025.

Elias Grigoriadis, The Canadian Press