CF Montreal Suffer Defeat In Season Opener

CF Montreal opened their MLS regular season with a loss to Inter Miami on Saturday night.

It wasn’t the start they were hoping for and after seven weeks of intense training in Montreal and Florida CF Montreal began their season with a loss.

Serhiy Kryvtsov opened the scoring in the 41st minute on a set piece corner where he found himself at the corner post unguarded and the ball bounced off him and into the net.

Shanyder Borgelin doubled Miami’s lead in the 76th minute as James Pantemis made a diving punch save that gave away possession. The first attempt was blocked and the second hit the post, but Borgelin buried the third as he was able to score into an empty net.

Drake Callender, the Inter Miami keeper, had one hell of a game making amazing saves and denying the visitors every chance they got to get back into the game.

He denied Sunusi Ibrahim in the 10th minute and Aaron Herrera in the 74th en route to his first clean sheet of the season.

It got worse for the visiting CF Montreal as in the 82nd minute it looked like Pantemis suffered an injury and needed to be subbed off holding his arm and Jonathan Sirois came in relief in his first MLS game.

See Also: Sirois Says It’s Time To Show The Club He’s Capable

Despite the loss head coach, Hernan Losada kept a positive approach to a game where the team looked flat and it still looked like they were working out the kinks in Losada’s system of play.

“We will try to retain the positives today with all the scoring chances we created,” he said. “But today was also a lack of efficiency. You need to put the ball in the back of the net if you want to pick up points, especially on the road. Defensively, the first goal was a set piece where we need to be sharper. We already conceded some in preseason games and we tried to address that this week. But in general, I believe we had the better chances and that we deserve at least a point from the match.”

Samuel Piette, one of the leaders on the team, gave full credit to their opponents and says it is a very long season – and that tonight was only the first game.

“Miami played a very good match,” he said, “but they didn’t have very many great chances. We had three or four. If we convert that early scoring chance, is it a different game? Perhaps. But the game is done. It was the first match of the season. There were some positives and some things that need to be addressed. That’s why it’s a 34-game season. We will learn from tonight.”

CF Montreal will travel to Texas to face Austin FC next Saturday at 8:30 pm eastern and the game can be seen on Apple TV with MLS Season pass.