Montreal Finally Smiles After Firing Their Coach, and NYCFC Walks Into Saturday's Worst Nightmare

Sometimes you fire your head coach and everything changes. CF Montreal axed Marco Donadel on April 12 after a brutal 1-6-0 start, and interim head coach Philippe Eullaffroy immediately flipped the script. Last Saturday? A 4-1 home demolition of the New York Red Bulls. That's Montreal's first home win of the season, and now they're chasing back-to-back victories when they host New York City FC on Saturday afternoon.

Eullaffroy's Two Words Explain Everything

The 62-year-old interim boss didn't come in screaming about tactics. He came in talking about culture. "There's a word we've used perhaps most often; it was 'smile,'" Eullaffroy said. "We wanted to bring back the smile to all corners of the team and staff. The second word was 'intensity.' We wanted to be an animal, very intense, who does everything to win."

That intensity showed up against the Red Bulls. Prince Owusu scored again, extending his team lead to five goals in his second year with the club. Wiki Carmona has chipped in three more. Montreal still sits 13th in the Eastern Conference at 2-6-0 with six points, ahead of only Philadelphia and Atlanta. But momentum? That's something you can feel now.

NYCFC Is Falling Apart at Exactly the Wrong Time

New York City FC looked like a team that had figured it out early. Three wins in their first four matches. Then everything collapsed. They're now 3-3-3 with 12 points and sitting on a five-match winless stretch (0-3-2). Most recently, they surrendered a 4-4 draw against FC Cincinnati after allowing two stoppage time goals in the second half.

Head coach Pascal Jansen traced it back to a March 22 loss to Inter Miami CF. "There's a few things that happened in the game against Miami which I've seen come back and it's been specifically addressed," Jansen said. "We've made ourselves aware of a couple things that have to be banned from our game in order to have the results that we're looking for and that we might even deserve."

Nicolas Fernandez has been lights out with eight goals, second most in MLS. Agustin Ojeda has three. But for a team leading the Eastern Conference with 19 goals on the year, they sure look lost right now. Saturday in Montreal? This is exactly the kind of trap game a struggling team falls into.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.