‘No Panic But Button Just Yet’: CF Montreal Suffers Third Straight Loss

On Saturday on a rainy night in the Music City, CF Montreal was beaten 2-0 by Nashville SC.

Canadian Jacob Shaffelburg and American Taylor Washington scored for the home team to secure the win and put CF Montreal in a similar position to last year.

The news didn’t get any better for the visitors as Lassi Lappalainen needed to be subbed off after one half, with head coach Hernan Losada confirming in his post-match press conference that the midfielder suffered an abductor injury.

CF Montreal dominated in possession and finished with over 500 passes, but again seemed to struggle offensively. I asked head coach Hernan Losada about that.

“I don’t care about possession”, he said bluntly. “In a lot of games you can have 30-40% possession like Nashville did tonight and be very efficient, and it’s something we need to work on. I like to have possession with purpose and today we didn’t create enough.”

Just like last season, the team is off to a 0-3 start, but this time they don’t even have a goal to show for their efforts – though they say it’s not time to panic just yet.

Canadian international Joel Waterman made his return from injury, and I asked him if he feels a change is needed to turn the season around and find success.

“I think this year we are a lot younger,” he responded . “Our expectations and standards are high, and we lack players with experience. We have enough where we shouldn’t be 0-3. I like our style and I feel we have talent and we just need to add key attacking pieces.”

Aaron Herrera, who was acquired during the off-season from Real Salt Lake, feels it is still early and that the team still has time to make changes in order to move forward on a positive note.

“We need to figure it out,” he added after the defeat. “It’s really just a mindset. When you go this long without scoring it’s like a mental barrier and it seems like you’re never going to score, but once we break it and score the floodgates will open. We just need to keep working and not panic just yet.”

CF Montreal will head home and will next host the Philadelphia Union in their home opener at Olympic Stadium next Saturday.