July 6, 2024
The Vancouver White Caps and CF Montreal play to a draw at Stade Saputo
CF Montreal hosted the Vancouver White Caps at Stade Saputo on Saturday night, bringing two of the three Canadian teams in the league together in a clash that saw Stade Saputo filled to the brim, as tickets sold out – and the capacity crowd made sure they were heard all through the night.
With key contributors to CF Montreal still on international duty representing Canada at the Copa America cup, Montreal would have to once more make do until Joel Waterman, Mathieu Choinière and Samuel Piette return. Still, despite their prolonged absence – CF Montreal are unbeaten in their last five home games.
See Also: CF Montreal defeat Philadelphia Union
As has been the case for much of the season, Montreal began the match tentatively, choosing to play a possession game, keeping the ball away from Vancouver as they felt out the White Caps, looking for a weakness in their game.
In turn, the Vancouver White Caps relied on a similar strategy and a game of cat and mouse broke out. Although the White Caps were able to find holes in Montreal’s defense, which was evident when Fafá Picault hit the cross bar with a right footed shot from the left side of the six yard box at roughly the twenty minute mark of the game. A minute prior, it was Montreal that had a chance to take the lead when Josef Martínez headed the ball from the center of the box, only to have to pushed away by White Caps keeper Yohei Takaoka.
Martinez’ chance came minutes after Nathan Saliba had tested Takaoka and Joaquin Sosa headed a ball just over the cross bar as it it looked like it might tuck into the top right corner of the net.
Brian White opened the scoring for the White Caps when he found the net in the 29th minute, when he found the ball on his foot in the box and tapped it easily into the bottom corner of the net. White too had come close to scorer early on, when he rolled a hard low strike through the box and narrowly missed clipping the right post.
Just moments into the second half, Lassi Lappalainen hit a solid strike that smashed into the post after beating goal keeper Takaoka – and in all fairness, Lappalainen had done well just to have gotten off a shot at such a difficult angle. Suddenly, it felt as if the momentum of the game had switched to Montreal and that would continue throughout the second half.
Montreal’s pressure finally was rewarded when Matías Cóccaro found a way to equalize the game in the 79th minute of play. Ruan placed a perfect cross into the box that Cóccaro leaped for and smashed a powerful header into the back of the net, bringing Montreal level. The goal came as a result as a strong series of pressing plays from Montreal, where about ten minutes earlier, Ruan thought he had scored when he fired a hard, low shot towards the right corner of Vancouver’s net, only to watch in roll just wide.
“There was a lack of intention to create more chaos,” said CF Montreal coach Laurent Comtois. “You can’t always try to be perfect. There are times when we stop playing or give up careless goals. There are times when the halves don’t resemble each other. But I’m still hopeful that it will work out and that we’ll start each half the same way, or at least find a way to preserve the tie at half-time in any case.”
“(Josef) Martínez is not receiving the space he wants at the moment. He knows very well when and how to move. I’m hopeful that the guys will be able to connect for two halves in the future.”
CF Montreal heads to the Big Apple to challenge the New York Red Bulls on July 17th, before heading home to host Toronto FC in a game that has some serious playoff implementations afoot.
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Toronto FC have been on a slide of late, and were beaten in the Canadian Cup last week by Forge FC; the same team that knocked Montreal out of the cup. Should Montreal beat Toronto, they’ll also lead-frog them in the standings and move ever closer to securing a playoff birth.
Vancouver will take on Pacific in the Canadian Cup on July 10th and return to MLS action against St. Louis on July 13th.
