When the then-Montr\u00e9al Impact rebranded as Club de Foot Montr\u00e9al in 2021, their fans weren\u2019t shy about showing their disdain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the dismantling of a dream,\u201d one supporters\u2019 group statement read in part. \u201cWe are becoming a bland club, just as many others have become.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fans carried the protest into home games, where they vandalized a sign with the new logo \u2013 something of a modern, minimalistic hybrid of a snowflake and a sphincter. Co-designer Justin Kingsley defended the badge against slang connotations associating snowflakes with pushovers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFine. Go ahead. Insult us,\u201d Kingsley said<\/a>. \u201cUnderestimate us, underestimate our team and our coach. I invite you to. To see a snowflake as a weak thing? Fine. \u2026 but when we come together, we form that impenetrable wall. Good luck to you defeating our storm, our blizzard.\u201d<\/p>\n That luck hasn\u2019t been needed for a while, and teams haven\u2019t even needed to be hot to get three points against those supposed snowflakes. On Saturday, CF Montr\u00e9al<\/a> fell 2-1 to the Philadelphia Union, the defending Supporters Shield winner who had yet to win this season.<\/p>\n Montr\u00e9al have long loitered near the bottom of the MLS<\/a> hierarchy, but five defeats in their opening six (including a 5-0 drubbing and a pair of 3-0 humblings) left the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois club in familiar and dire territory.<\/p>\n The hosts broke league custom and declined to make head coach Marco Donadel or any other staff or players available to the media, ringing alarm bells in lieu of the literal 1,500-pound cast iron one<\/a> in the supporters bank.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Montr\u00e9al did what they do with unparalleled regularity in this league. They announced another coaching change; Donadel is gone, along with a couple of his assistants.<\/p>\n Donadel\u2019s appointment was a curious one, coming on the back of an interim stretch where he mined just 34 points from 35 games in all competitions. That 0.97 points per game rate stood as the poorest among the 11 men who have led Montr\u00e9al since their 2012 MLS debut, and it fell to 0.88 by the time he was shown the door after seven games this season.<\/p>\n None of those 11 coaches have lasted even 95 games on the job. Only one (Mauro Biello) stayed in the job for two full calendar years. Their most successful appointment, Wilfried Nancy, leads the group with 1.4 points per game. But even that isn\u2019t that good; last season, 1.4 points per game would not have broken into the East\u2019s playoff places.<\/p>\n Through 13 MLS seasons, Montr\u00e9al have struggled to keep stride with MLS as the league has evolved. The club have reached the first round of the playoffs just four times (most recently under Nancy in 2022), with another two trips to the play-in round. They have never announced a record signing, a custom these days in MLS even if clubs keep the exact fee under wraps. Transfermarkt speculates<\/a> that no signing has cost the team more than $4m.<\/p>\n In 2025, their payroll ($12m) was comfortably the league\u2019s lowest. That wouldn\u2019t be such a setback if their academy was whirring, but their roster boasts just three homegrown products<\/a> with a combined 1,737 MLS minutes logged.<\/p>\n Of course, the team\u2019s owner, Joey Saputo, has made one considerable investment since Montr\u00e9al debuted in MLS: Bologna FC, the Italian Serie A club where he has been majority shareholder and chair since October 2014. Two of his sons, Luca and Simone, now share responsibility atop Montreal\u2019s sporting hierarchy. Another son, Jesse, was moved from Montreal\u2019s academy to Bologna\u2019s in 2023. No football group has clearer family ties, but the MLS branch clearly aren\u2019t benefiting much from their association with their Serie A sibling, who played Champions League football and won the Coppa Italia last season.<\/p>\n For a sporting market that\u2019s only two decades removed from the painful relocation of baseball\u2019s beloved Expos, CF Montr\u00e9al have become a worryingly neglected holdover begging for restoration.<\/p>\n Timbers take advantage of LAFC rotationKevin Kelsy and Phil Neville share a moment after the win. Photograph: Craig Mitchelldyer\/Portland Timbers\/MLS\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Los Angeles FC entered the weekend as the only MLS team yet to concede a goal this season. The Portland Timbers came into Saturday\u2019s match winless in five, with Phil Neville kicking an ad board<\/a> after a recent draw. So, true to custom in MLS, both trends ended in unison: Timbers 2-1 LAFC.<\/p>\n