CF Montreal will play its last game at home on Saturday and conclude the regular season by visiting Inter Miami CF on October 9. In short, it starts to feel the series.
But when you talk to the head coach, Wilfried Nancy, you realize that the second phase of the season is in a remote corner of his mind.
“I’m not thinking of the playoffs, it’s still too far away,” he said during his press briefing on Thursday. We have two games to play and we continue to climb the mountain. »
His team have just returned from a two-week international break and have their batteries fully charged to negotiate the rest of the season and the fall tournament.
full stadium
It’s a last opportunity for the Bleu-blanc-noir to see its fans in the regular season and, it must be said, the atmosphere has been very good for a few games at Stade Saputo.
Moreover, we already know that it will be full, since the team announced on Wednesday that the match will be sold out.
“We want to do a good result in front of our fans, agreed defender Zachary Brault-Guillard. We have to finish the last game of the year at home well and why not go for first place, because it is still possible. »
Because, if the math turns in favor of CF Montreal (59 points), it could well grab first place in the Eastern Association or in the general classification of MLS.
To do this, he will have to win his last two games and hope for losses from Philadelphia (first in the East, 64 points) and Los Angeles FC (first in the West, 64 points).
progress
The team is having a stellar season, yet Nancy feels there’s little to separate it from last year when the team finished two points out of the playoffs by losing the final game. of the season.
Nancy even analyzed the two seasons and was able to identify pivotal moments.
“You’ll think I’m crazy, but I tell you what I think. We looked at last year which match prevented us from going to the top of the table.
“I watched the games we lost last year. We lacked experience and we missed open goals. This year, we succeed. »
He says he regrets the two games played against the Union this season, two meetings which separate the two teams.
On March 5, the Montreal club led 1-0 at Olympic Stadium and the Union scored twice in three minutes to win. Then, in April, the Union drew a no verdict in Pennsylvania.
But a victory in a hypothetical confrontation in the playoffs could forget all that.