“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Portland Timbers know it.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Antony is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Portland Timbers have more foreign players than the form allows, and he is the one without a place on it. He will train with a side he is not permitted to play for until the next window.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Ian Smith is on it.
$4.7M on the table at Charlotte Football Club. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Daniel Pereira wants continental football; whether CF Montreal can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
The deal with San Jose Earthquakes is done in every sense but the one that puts him on the pitch. Nothing goes wrong at this stage, except on the occasions when it does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CF Montreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The interest is real enough to have reached print. CF Montreal have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Words at CF Montreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayan Ceballos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
CF Montreal have made the call to Colorado Rapids. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
Kevin Kelsy and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Alexander Aravena wants continental football; whether Portland Timbers can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Add another name to the list: Atlanta United FC have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Gage Guerra. The answer from Portland Timbers has not changed — yet.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Antony was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Portland Timbers have made the call to CF Montreal. No fee, a share of the wages, and a spare shirt in the position where the squad has been thinnest all season.
CF Montreal have gone to San Jose Earthquakes with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
The offer from Chicago Fire for Efrain Morales was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Dagur Dan Þórhallsson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad15 Feb 2027
Daniel Ríos falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
San Jose Earthquakes have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CF Montreal, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Henadii Synchuk is on it.
The name of Daniel Ríos has come up in conversations CF Montreal were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad18 Jan 2027
Words at CF Montreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayan Ceballos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Dante Sealy was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matheus Nascimento signs something — a contract at CF Montreal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Daniel Pereira wants continental football; whether CF Montreal can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Words at CF Montreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayan Ceballos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Owen Graham-Roache and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout21 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Dawid Bugaj's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matheus Nascimento signs something — a contract at CF Montreal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Nobody at CF Montreal will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
A conversation in the manager’s office, and a commitment that came out of it. Promises like that are cheap to make and expensive to break, and Dante Sealy has written the date down.
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at CF Montreal, and both men came out saying it was fine.
1 months left, and both sides know what that means: every week without a signature, the fee CF Montreal could ask drops and the wages Dawid Bugaj can ask rise.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CF Montreal they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Dagur Dan Þórhallsson was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Daniel Ríos was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Nov 2026
Dawid Bugaj is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Jalen Neal trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matheus Nascimento signs something — a contract at CF Montreal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Henadii Synchuk is on it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around CF Montreal they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Words at CF Montreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Brayan Ceballos is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at CF Montreal this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; CF Montreal are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
16 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
The dugout26 Oct 2026
Dawid Bugaj is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Daniel Pereira trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Matheus Nascimento signs something — a contract at CF Montreal or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 11 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dante Sealy will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around CF Montreal the goodbyes have quietly begun.
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
0‑2 to Orlando City, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Words at CF Montreal training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jalen Neal is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad31 Aug 2026
16 new faces, and CF Montreal are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑2 DeAndre Moore left the room before anybody could ask which.
Two goals and a mark of 7.95 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Henadii Synchuk, 20, plays like he has been here for years — 7.61
A mark of 7.61 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 20-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.92 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Dawid Bugaj reports back to CF Montreal with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.