Home » News » CF Montreal | Accumulation of yellow cards does not alter Joel Waterman’s approach

CF Montreal | Accumulation of yellow cards does not alter Joel Waterman’s approach

There is only one game left for Joel Waterman to earn a little star in his homework and lessons book or, in the world of MLS, to be rewarded for “good behavior” on the field.

Posted at 11:55 a.m.


Michael Lamarche
The Canadian Press

Saturday night in Montreal against New York City FC – or during his next outing if he has not been injured in the meantime – the Canadian defender will try to play a fifth game in a row without being given a yellow card.

If he succeeds, he will have a yellow card removed from his record, as provided for in a clause in the MLS rulebook entitled “Good Behavior Incentive”.

However, if he is caught at fault and receives one, it will be his eighth of the season, which will earn him a second suspension in 2022. He will then miss the next game.

On May 14, Waterman was forced to miss the match in Charlotte after a fifth yellow card in 2022, received the previous week against Orlando City SC.

Since picking up his seventh yellow card on June 25 against Charlotte in a game played at Stade Saputo, Waterman has worn the uniform in the five games since. However, he did not play a minute against Sporting Kansas City on July 9, which excludes this meeting from the count.

In the other four, he remained on the field for the regulation 90 minutes without being faulted.

However, Waterman was well aware of the risks he was running, but his way of playing was never altered, he assured.

“I’m not really changing my approach,” he said Thursday after CF Montreal’s training session, held exceptionally at Saputo Stadium.

“I know I got a lot of yellow cards early in the season, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t get a stupid yellow. I’ve already been suspended once, I don’t want to be suspended again, and I think I have one game left to go down to six. But for me, it doesn’t change anything, and if I get a yellow, that’s it. I will apply my style of play no matter what happens. »

Still, in his role as a defender, Waterman – like teammates like Kamal Miller and Rudy Camacho – is very likely to be shown yellow cards.

“Absolutely,” Waterman said in response to a specific question about it.

“We are the most physical players, we have to do a lot more slides, we have to do a lot more actions to prevent the ball from ending up in our net. Sometimes you need a yellow card to achieve that. »

Moreover, at the same time that Waterman was in danger, with every significant action, of picking up an eighth yellow card and deserving a second suspension, Camacho, at his side, risked receiving a fifth yellow card in 2022, which would have also earned a one-game suspension.

It’s a situation that hasn’t stopped head coach Wilfried Nancy from regularly sending them onto the pitch in starting roles. But Nancy had a well-laid plan if ever one of her two defenders picked up a yellow card during this stretch of games.

“I’ll tell you what we had planned, in fact, so that you understand the thinking. The idea was that if either Rudy or Joel had a yellow card, we took out (from the field) the one who didn’t have the yellow card. Whether the score was 3-0, 1-0 or 1-1, we took it out. That was the idea. We didn’t have to; they defended well without making a mistake,” Nancy said on Thursday.

Each week, MLS publishes a list of all players who may be suspended for accumulating yellow cards.

However, this week, Camacho’s name does not appear there in anticipation of Saturday’s duel since he completed the stage of five consecutive games without being caught out.

League rules call for one-game suspensions after accumulations of five, eight, 11 and 13 yellow cards. These suspensions are also accompanied by fines of $250, $500, $750 and $1000, respectively.

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