The day after CF Montreal’s heartbreaking 4-3 defeat against the Fire in Chicago, the work of referees remains on everyone’s lips.
And for good reason, several situations that were, to say the least, questionable went in the direction of the local favorites.
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The head coach of the Bleu-Blanc-Noir, Laurent Courtois, was not afraid to say it at a press conference after the game, even if several fans probably would have liked him to be more forbidding towards the officials.
“I don’t want to go far, I’m afraid it will become more serious afterwards. But 22 minutes of added time, a red card which is not given to the opposing goalkeeper. On the sidelines, they come onto the field. There was a goal where there wasn’t even a corner. It builds up, the first goal we concede is offside,” Courtois said.
“I don’t want to speak out of emotion, but I have the impression that something was taken away from my guys, and it’s hard to swallow in these conditions,” he said. he continued.
Despite everything, the French instructor affirmed his satisfaction with the work of his troop.
“I’m proud of the guys. Getting to 3-1 in the way they did, I repeat that in the near and medium term we will even be able to maximize opportunities a little more often. 3-1 at 84e minute, that was huge in itself and I’m very proud of them. But there were external elements which made it still complicated.”
A city that lives up to its name
While the Montreal eleven already had to deal with these disputed facts of play, the weather came to put the last nail in the coffin.
The CFM unfortunately understood why Chicago was nicknamed the “Windy City”. The Fire were indeed lucky on the last goal, when the wind caused the trajectory of the ball to change after a more or less harmless return from Kellyn Acosta from the middle of the field.
A few seconds later, the leather found itself in Jonathan Sirois’ cage.
“There are things we can do better. There were super difficult conditions. An ultra dry pitch, a lot of wind, as you saw with this last goal. It’s very difficult, but it was the same conditions for both teams,” admitted captain Samuel Piette after the match in comments relayed by the team.
That said, and despite this disappointing setback, CF Montreal has seven points in four games since the start of the season, which represents harvests much higher than many observers anticipated.
Piette’s teammates will be back in action on March 30 against DC United at Audi Field.