Following the defeat in Nashville on Wednesday night, Samuel Piette spoke of a “mistake”. Sunday, after the 2-1 loss against Real Salt Lake at Saputo Stadium, Rudy Camacho used the expression “bad evening”.
The two color carriers of CF Montreal were perhaps right to analyze these two failures as well. However, if the defeat in Nashville can be described as predictable and understandable, that against Real Salt Lake is explained a little less well.
If we exclude the fact that CF Montreal had played on Wednesday and that Real Salt Lake had played its last game four days earlier, everything favored the Montreal team.
First, CF Montreal had never trailed at Stade Saputo since the start of the season. Also, he faced a rival who had not scored an away goal in 315 minutes, exactly three and a half games. A rival who, moreover, had suffered four defeats in as many stops in Montreal.
But for reasons that head coach Wilfried Nancy, Camacho and Mathieu Choinière seemed to have difficulty clearly identifying, CF Montreal delivered one of their least inspired and inspiring performances since the start of the season. Especially in Montreal.
“We know that we have just come out of a sequence of many games. We just wanted to come back with the victory, and it’s a defeat that hurts. Here, at the stadium, we wanted to do better,” admitted Choinière, in a room next to the team’s locker room.
“I think we should have managed the tempo, settled in a little more, made them move because we knew that if we made them run, there were going to be spaces”, added Choinière, when questioned on this which had not worked in the last 25 minutes or so of the match, after the visitors’ second net.
No myth of invincibility
With the team’s recent successes, including points collected on some generally inhospitable rival grounds, CF Montreal players may have thought on Sunday that they had no reason to worry about their rivals and that a positive result would follow. Especially after Djordje Mihailovic’s goal after just 43 seconds of play.
However, Nancy does not perceive such an attitude in her players, even if she could settle down unconsciously.
“With my group, that’s not how I feel. There is confidence in my group, but there is also humility. All the results we got, the guys worked hard to get them. Salt Lake played well, they did what they had to do to put us in trouble. »
With two other games on the schedule this week, including Wednesday’s game at the Canadian Championship, Nancy must prepare her players quickly in order to get her team back on the road to success.
For the head coach of CF Montreal, the recipe is the same as usual.
“We are going to analyze the match (on Sunday), help the players to realize what to progress on. As I said before, we were on a series of matches where we did not lose. Very well. But we didn’t get fired up,” said Nancy.
“We lost today (Sunday), but it’s not the end of the world. We will look, we will take a step back. We have a Canadian championship on Wednesday that is close to our hearts. (The important thing is to) recover, find the best solution for this game on Wednesday, ”added Nancy.
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