Montreal – May 25, 2024
Nashville SC and CF Montreal play to a goalless draw at Stade Saputo
Tonight, two struggling teams took to the pitch at Stade Saputo in Montreal, to duke it out in the rain. Luckily for everyone, tonight’s rainfall was but a sprinkle until the torrential downpour and lightning that delayed the last outing at this stadium by close to two and a half hours.
Nashville SC have improved their play since a management change that brings in interim manager Rumba Munthali, while CF Montreal come into this game on the back of three consecutive losses.
See Also: Forge FC stun CF Montreal at Canadian Championship
Both teams were overly cautious to start the game, and both botched chances as a result. Too many passes where shot attempts should have been told the story of the early going, as both sides seemed to suffer from low confidence.
For CF Montreal, having not earned a win since April 13th when they beat FC Cincinnati at Stade Saputo, and it is obviously eating away at their collective psyche. Coming oft a loss to Forge FC of the Canadian Premier League Wednesday past won’t have helped that either. The loss to Forge FC also eliminates them from the Canadian Championship and is a loss to a lower division team to boot.
While Nashville SC have been in better form of late, the wins are not yet coming, and there’s probably a little frustration there as well.
With just over a half an hour gone, Nashville SC looked certain to score into a gaping goal, but the ball was swatted away by an extremely motivated Joel Waterman who made a mad dash to head the ball off the line mid-air, and in doing some, crashed heavily into the goal post. Luckily for CF Montreal, who are already suffering a long list of injuries to key players, Waterman was able to stay in the game.
The play came off a massive gaff by CF Montreal goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois, who once again made a poor judgment and gave away the ball in front of his own box. Sirois and CF Montreal were lucky to come away without conceding a goal, while Waterman will surely have the bruises to show for his effort tomorrow morning.
Moments later, Sirois again gave the ball away in a dangerous area and again CF Montreal were lucky not to have given up a goal. No doubt the Montreal faithful were given nightmare reminders of the goal that was scored against them in Toronto a week ago on a similar play.
Seven minutes later, it was Montreal’s turn to have its best scoring opportunity of the half as Mathieu Choinière played Jules-Anthony Vilsaint in and forced a strong save from Nashville keeper Joe Willis.
CF Montreal’s best chance of the game came shortly after, when Bryce Duke thumped a low hard shot that just cruised by the outside of the post, leaving many in the stadium thinking he had scored.
As the game wore on, CF Montreal looked to have the better chances but Nashville SC were always able to get in the way of their shots and close down lanes to the net.
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CF Montreal hosts DC United on Wednesday night while Nashville SC next play FC Cincinnati that same night.
Hopefully CF Montreal can stop the bleeding and end the seven game winless slump that has also seen them concede fifteen goals in that span. As such, tonight’s clean sheet is something of a positive.
