Montreal Finally Smiled, Now They're Coming for NYCFC's Winless Streak

After firing their head coach and losing their first six games, CF Montreal just beat the Red Bulls 4-1 at home. Now they're hosting New York City FC on Saturday, and interim boss Philippe Eullaffroy isn't treating this like a rebuild. He's treating it like a wake-up call that actually worked.

Here's the thing: Montreal started 1-6-0 and canned Marco Donadel on April 12. Bad. Really bad. But then Eullaffroy took over and the team looked completely different in that Red Bulls win. Prince Owusu scored again, extending his team lead to five goals in his second year with Montreal. Wiki Carmona chipped in three more. Suddenly, at 2-6-0 with six points, Montreal has something to build on, even if they're still stuck in 13th place in the Eastern Conference, ahead of only Philadelphia and Atlanta.

The 62-Year-Old's Two-Word Philosophy

Eullaffroy's approach is simple but it's working. "There's a word we've used perhaps most often; it was 'smile,'" he 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 on the field. Now Montreal gets a shot at a team that's equally frustrated. NYCFC is 3-3-3 with 12 points but they haven't won in five matches, dropping to 0-3-2 in that stretch. They started hot (three wins in four games) but completely fell apart. Their last result was a brutal 4-4 draw against FC Cincinnati where they gave up two stoppage time goals in the second half. That kind of thing breaks a team's confidence.

NYCFC's Search for Answers

Head coach Pascal Jansen thinks he knows where it all went wrong. He's pointing to a March 22 loss to Inter Miami CF as the moment things shifted.

"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."

NYCFC still has firepower. Nicolas Fernandez leads the Eastern Conference with eight goals, and Agustin Ojeda has three. But lately, scoring hasn't been the problem. It's defense and closing out games. That's why Saturday matters so much. Montreal wants back-to-back wins for the first time this year. NYCFC just wants to stop bleeding.

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