Marked for Daniel Aaronson
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad8 Mar 2027
Daniel Aaronson damages knee ligaments — 20 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 20 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market8 Mar 2027
The bid was some way short and CF Montreal did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Orlando City have kept their man, and CF Montreal go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
$5.1M was the most the club would pay and Columbus Crew were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
The dugout8 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” CF Montreal may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Match6 Mar 2027
7 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Market8 Mar 2027
CF Montreal spend $1.8M to raise the standard
This is not cover and nobody is pretending it is. $1.8M has been paid because Luke Brennan is straightforwardly better than what was already here, and the club has decided to stop waiting.
Transfer targets8 Mar 2027
CF Montreal have gone to Austin FC 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.
Boardroom8 Mar 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Mateja Đorđević enough to be asked twice.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad1 Mar 2027
Daniel Aaronson damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
CF Montreal have gone to Columbus Crew 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.
Market1 Mar 2027
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what CF Montreal can pretend not to have heard.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
No deal for Chris Durkin at that price
CF Montreal offered $4.8M; St. Louis CITY SC said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
$1.8M on the table at Atlanta United FC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets1 Mar 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom1 Mar 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Frankie Westfield enough to be asked twice.
Market1 Mar 2027
The name of Olger Escobar has come up in conversations CF Montreal were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“I have tried. I have really tried, and every day I wake up in the wrong place.” Nobody at CF Montreal can coach that out of a man, and nobody there is pretending to.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces22 Feb 2027
Supporters organise against the CF Montreal board
A bad atmosphere can be waited out. A group of people meeting afterwards to decide what to do about it cannot, and everybody in the building knows which stage this is.
Squad22 Feb 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Daniel Aaronson
36 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. CF Montreal lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
An offer of $13.8M for Chris Brady
CF Montreal have gone to Chicago Fire 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.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
$4.8M on the table at St. Louis CITY SC. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
The offer went to Philadelphia Union this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
Transfer targets22 Feb 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $2.4M — a club that wants Peyton Miller enough to be asked twice.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Brooks Lennon 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.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
The manager makes an example of Daniel Pereira
“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.