Less than two months after balancing the heartbreaking end of the season by winning the Canadian Soccer Championship against their great rivals Toronto FC, CF Montreal players began their training camp on Monday with a view to the 2022 season.
A total of 32 players presented themselves to head coach Wilfried Nancy, including three members of the Academy. These players are winger / striker Jérémie Omeonga, winger Gabriel Antinoro and midfielder Matteo Schiavoni invited for tryouts.
The only absent is midfielder Djordje Mihailovic, who has been invited to a United States national team training camp which runs until January 21.
After an initial day devoted to medical tests, and another to physical tests, the first training sessions will begin on Wednesday at the Olympic Stadium and will continue until January 27.
The team will then move its operations to Orlando, January 27 to February 3, and then to Fort Lauderdale, February 3 to 13.
On February 14, CF Montreal will hold a training session in Torréon, Mexico, ahead of the Concacaf Champions League first leg against Santos Laguna the following day.
Seven days later, CF Montreal will host the Mexican squad at the Olympic Stadium for the return duel.
Originally, CF Montreal was to travel to Orlando on Friday and spend 10 days there, before returning to Montreal for another 10-day period. The team was then due to return to Florida, Fort Lauderdale, from February 3 to 13, before flying to Mexico.
The rise in COVID-19 cases and the rapid transmission of the Omicron variant have changed plans, CF Montreal executives have explained in recent days.
A different defense
Wilfried Nancy’s troupe’s MLS season kicks off February 27 in Orlando. The local opening is scheduled to take place on March 5, at Olympic Stadium, facing the Philadelphia Union.
Nancy will reunite with several of the 2021 players, including goalkeeper Sebastian Breza, who will be back with the Montreal club for the 2022 season, on loan with option to buy from Italian club Bologna FC 1909.
The defensive line will show a different face, however, as Rudy Camacho, crowned CF Montreal defensive player of the year in 2021, and Kiki Struna, are not back.
Camacho’s contract expired at the end of the calendar and the two clans failed to strike a deal. As for Struna, sporting director Olivier Renard has chosen not to exercise the option in his contract.
To replace them, CF Montreal announced the acquisition, in early December, of Italian defender Gabriele Corbo on loan from FC Bologna for the 2022 season.
Then, just after Christmas, CF Montreal got their hands on Canadian international Alistair Johnston of Nashville SC, a 23-year-old defenseman to whom he signed a two-year contract to which were added two years of options. .