May 3, 2025
CF Montreal beaten at home by Philadelphia Union
The Philadelphia Union arrived in Montreal riding a pair of back to back clean sheets while winning both matches in convincing fashion in front of their home fans. The Union beat both DC United and Atlanta United by three goals to nil in their previous outings, having last conceded a goal in the fifty-fifth minute against New York City.
CF Montreal, on the other hand, hope to have turned the corner and put their season back on track, having beaten rivals Toronto FC in their last outing. That game took place in the Canadian Championship, however, leaving CF Montreal still hunting down their first win of the season in the MLS.
See Also: Montreal Roses FC host Ottawa Rapid in first ever home game
What CF Montreal didn’t need, was to concede a goal less than two minutes into the game. Which they did.
The Union’s Danley Jean-Jacques sprinted up field and through CF Montreal’s midfield with ease, laying a smooth pass along the grass from the right corner of the box, over to the left corner, where Indiana Vassilev riffled a bullet of a shot into the top right corner of the net. CF Montreal keeper Jonathan Sirois hadn’t a chance to get in the way of that ball, and just like that, Montreal had been found sleeping to the start the game, and were almost instantly down a goal.
The strike was the first goal for Vassilev as a member of the Philadelphia Union.
Interim coach Marco Donadel went with a two striker approach for the first time this season, starting both Prince Owusu and Giacomo Vrioni and the duo created a lot of interesting plays together. Despite being down so early, CF Montreal responded quickly, taking the action to the Union and creating several good scoring chances as a result. However, Montreal still struggled to capitalize on their chances, and weren’t finding any finishing on some rather high-end chances.
Two minutes into added time, just shy of half-time, Vrioni finally found a way to beat Union keeper Andre Blake when Dante Sealy crossed a low ball into the box that took a few pinball style bounces before rolling to the boot of Vrioni for slipped the ball past the keeper, thus ending the Union’s shutout streak that had lasted three minutes of playing time. It was also CF Montreal’s first home goal of the season.
CF Montreal and the Philadelphia Union were level at half-time.
Sealy had a beautiful chance to put his team ahead, but blasted the ball just over the crossbar. Ten minutes later, Sealy appeared to be taken down in the penalty box, but upon review, referee Marcos DeOliveira decided that there wasn’t a foul on the play, and Montreal’s appeal for a penalty was firmly denied.
With just six minutes to go in regulation time, the Union found a way to feed a ball beyond goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois, into the back of the net. It was an innocent play, where CF Montreal had possession but allowed the Union to tap the ball away from them, which sprung Mikael Uhre wide open and able to shoot on goal. Sirois had come out to challenge, and to his credit, got a glove on the ball but not enough to stop its momentum, as it bounced behind him into the empty net.
CF Montreal left the field under a sea of boos that rained down upon them from their displeased fans, on a night where Montreal had looked the better team. They just can’t seem to finish plays off.
“We have more plays in the box, we are more solid in transition,” said interim coach Marco Donadel. “I’m happy that our performance is improving. I’m happy because the group understands. They talk to each other with positive words and positive energy. We lost on two, three shots, against a solid team. We will probably examine the match, because they make the substitutions, they have good energy and we drop a bit at the end.”
A sentiment that Nathan Saliba seemed to echo in the post-game press conference.
“Honestly, we don’t get outplayed in games,” claimed Saliba. “We’re getting closer and closer to our objective of how we want to play. We’re only missing the finishing touches to start getting results. This is definitely not a time when we want to start sinking. We’re coming off a good result in Toronto that keeps us in the Canadian Championship. We’re competing for a cup, so we have to keep going, but we need to start picking up results in MLS to move up the table.”
One thing for certain, is that Montreal are certainly happy to have striker Giacomo Vrioni back in the selection process. Vrioni scored a cracker of a goal, a scissor kick, in Montreal’s Canadian Championship win of Toronto FC – and tallied again tonight. Montreal’s lone marker.
“This goal at home is a nice feeling, especially after a lot of months out,” said Vrioni. “I want to say thank you to the CF Montréal medical and performance staff for their patience, professionalism, hard work and for taking such great care of me. I think it is the life of a striker. Sometimes you touch the ball and it goes in directly and sometimes you miss the chance. This happened to the best players, I trained with some of the best during my career and it happened to them as well. I think that if you do the right things every day, you will always be rewarded twice as much. It’s not just in training, it’s every hour of the day. You must work hard, recover, and eat well. This is what I tell myself to improve every day.”
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CF Montreal remain winless so far in the 2025 MLS campaign, and are sinking deeper and deeper into the basement of the league. While the season is still early, the task to climb out of last place is growing tougher and tougher by the day. Perhaps it is a good thing that there isn’t any type of relegation in Major League Soccer.
The Philadelphia Union return home to Subaru Park on May 7 to host the Indy Eleven of the USL, in the U.S Open Cup. CF Montreal head to Yankee stadium to take on New York City on May 10th – both games are a 7:30pm kick-off.
