GG: So first of all, of course, with the arrival of our new head coach Laurent Courtois, we had an off-season start with training camp in Arizona and Florida, as well as our first six road games. We had a big list of injuries after the start of the season and now, fortunately, they’re pretty much all back. There have been some departures in sports management, and yesterday we announced the arrival of Corey Wray. There’s been restructuring in the men’s academy teams, and we celebrated the first anniversary of our Academy program. We’re one of the two best-represented MLS teams in the Copa America and I’d like to congratulate the Canadian team on their performance and wish them the best of luck for Saturday’s third-place match. On the community front, as you know, it’s in our DNA to be involved in the community. We’ve done a number of activities, whether it’s our staff, the players, the academy. We’re really involved in the community. We’ve done a lot of activities in the community, including the walk on Mount Royal, activities to celebrate soccer in the community and tree-planting, so all kinds of activities that energize our employees, players and staff too. We have the Montreal Impact Foundation, which has announced the construction of 10,000 fields over the next five years, including two this year in the municipalities of Val-des-Bois and Coteaux. From a business point of view, we’ve had a record year. From the point of view of season ticket holders at 15,000, we’ve sold out all our season tickets, and all our games have been sold out. To date, ten out of ten. So we’d really like to thank our fans and supporters. We have an electrifying atmosphere on the pitch. We’ve invested a great deal of time and effort in the passageways, to activate our partners’ food and activity offer. It’s paying off. And our brand is doing very, very well. We have strong growth in our social media engagement according to the Blackfire analytics tool. We currently rank 11ᵉ in MLS in terms of social media engagement and the number one team in Canada. Then, from a partnership point of view, we have fifteen new partners who have joined the club. I’m very, very proud of that. A lot of Quebec flagships and a good mix of international partners. A global brand with a local flavor in Quebec.
From a sporting point of view, so for the club’s philosophy, I just want to clarify it, make sure it’s well anchored and make it clear that it’s not the philosophy of any particular individual, but it’s the philosophy of the club. The club’s sporting philosophy is as follows:
-to train young players,
-to rely on the Academy,
-to have a local flavor,
-the sale of players,
-to work closely with Bologna,
-to play an attacking game of construction and of possession,
-and to have our own soccer culture,
-We’re always looking for results,
-We want to be competitive and, above all,
-We want players who want to be here, who want to be part of our project and who are ready to give their all for the club.
So, our famous “grinta” has to be demonstrated. That’s the club’s sporting philosophy. Now, in terms of concrete objectives, I presented our concrete objectives earlier this year, which were: to win the Canadian championship and reach the playoffs.
Unfortunately for the Canadian championship, we know what happened. We’ll be fine next year. All the same, there’s still a chance of getting into the Champions Cup, but we know that the road will be more complicated and arduous. It must be through the League or the playoffs.
As far as the playoffs are concerned, we’re currently in 11ᵉ place, four points off seventh and one point away from getting into the playoffs in ninth place. So, everything is up for grabs there.
So, when I came on board in terms of sporting director, I took a step back. So, it’s been almost two months now, and I’m going to share with you some of my initial observations.
- We absolutely must further develop our scouting team and our recruitment methods. We absolutely must strengthen our analytical capabilities, particularly in recruitment.
- We must continue to innovate to enhance the performance of our players. As you know, we capture players’ physical performance on the pitch. With GPS, we can do even more.
- We’re going to put in place, and we’ve already started to do so, a more rigorous approach to sports management and decision-making. This means documenting analyses, reports and decisions so that later in the future, we can go back over them and really understand why we made such a decision, why we chose such a player profile, and we can really continue to move in the right direction.
But above all, I sincerely believe, and when I say that I mean the whole team, both players and staff, we really need to take a serious look at ourselves, both individually and collectively, to find the consistency we need to achieve our goals. Right now, there’s a lot of turnovers in the squad. We’re playing and we’re not confident that all the players are going to give us the performances we expect of them. And you’ll see in the numbers in a little more detail later, there are some figures that say that they are not. The transfer market opens soon. I’ve taken things in hand personally since I joined. I work on it every day. It’s not just me. I have a team around me with whom I can anchor myself. And now Corey Wray has joined the team to help us, to support us through the transfer market. We’re looking to strengthen the squad with the right profiles that fit in with the style of play our coach wants to implement. And yes, Laurent Courtois is involved in player analysis. Our short-term challenges are very clear is that our squad is full, and we don’t have much room to maneuver in the salary cap. So, to sign players, we’re going to have to free up others by trading them or other methods. So, I’m telling you, we’re going to look to develop the team in the short term according to our needs, because we want to maximize performance and we want to make the playoffs while remaining true to our sporting philosophy that I described earlier.
So, in terms of our record, right now, as you know, we’re five wins, nine losses, eight draws, 23 points, 11th place, 31 goals scored. And the big problem now is goals allowed. It’s clear in front of you. 46 goals allowed. So, we need to play better defensively and particularly in stoppage-time situations. We conceded sixteen of the 46 goals in set plays, seven from corners, four from free kicks and five from penalties. And just like you, I’ve also seen goals from corners, for example where it’s not the first action, the first header that’s in the back of the net, it’s not even the second, sometimes it’s the third. It really comes down to the determination of the players on the pitch not to want to be counted out. And that’s something we absolutely must correct. Otherwise, we won’t make the playoffs. You can’t go on averaging more than two goals conceded per game and still hope to make the playoffs, that’s not going to happen.
Around the structure, we announced yesterday the arrival of Corey Wray. When I spoke to you last time, I told you that I wanted to take a step back, to take my time putting the right structure in place and the right people. Just as I did with the business side, we put the pillars in place and now we really have a solid team. I took a step back when I came into the job, and I want to do the same thing at sporting level. I’m not going to rush into placing someone without fully understanding the overall structure we want to put in place. So, Corey is the ideal person for us with a lot of experience in MLS, a lot of experience in youth development, a lot of contacts with people in MLS, with agents and agencies too. So, he’s a winner and we share the same philosophy, which is why he’s here with us as a strategic sports consultant for the next few months, to help us, not just to do an analysis, but to roll up his sleeves with us, look at our workforce and see how we can balance it better, go and make the necessary changes we can make, but based on the constraints we have around the workforce and also the wage bill, and to project ourselves already preparing for the next transfer market.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out Daniel Pozzi, he’s been with us for fifteen years as first-team operations manager, but we’ve added responsibilities to his role, namely managing the salary cap and MLS rules. You know how the rules evolve, so you must understand them to be able to set up the squad properly. So, he’s going to work very closely with Corey, who knows him very well, to be able to optimize and optimize our ways of doing things. And Dan has structured the operation very well. We’ve brought together a team of people, even from the academy, to put a good structure in place, to support everything from logistical operations to inventories, all the support for the first team.
I’m sharing with you the structure of the academy and we announced last week that we were changing the structure. And this also came from MLS who changed the structure of MLS Next. There are no longer any U17 or U1 teams, but now there are U18 and U16 teams. The U18s have an asterisk because we’ll be able to have older players in the U18s, i.e. the under-18s. We’re waiting for confirmation from the league. Is it two, is it three and what are the ages? But we’ll certainly have the luxury of having older players in the U18s. And on top of that, we’ve added a U15 team that will be in the MLS Next. So, we now have three teams in MLS Next. Which represents an additional investment for the club. So, in fact, it’s an additional investment compared to the structure we had before, and it’s really a strategic direction we’re taking on youth to align ourselves with modern soccer. The reality is that we’re signing younger and younger players. So yes, that means that the reserve team is being dissolved and the team will finish their season this year, and we’ll be supporting the players to help them on their way. And finally, our academy ecosystem, through all our screening and development programs, we reach around 25 thousand players across the province, and we’re very proud to now have twelve partner clubs as you can see. We work with them on identification, recruitment, knowledge sharing with coaches and training. So, you see, we’re expanding across the province, and we’re very, very proud of that.
In conclusion, we have twelve games to play to reach the playoffs. We’ve got the return of the injured, we’ll see the return of the players after the Copa America. We have the arrival of Corey to reinforce our existing sports team, and we’re looking forward to the rest of the season with great enthusiasm. Thank you for your attention. Now I’ll answer your questions.
Q: Laurent Courtois, we often talk to him. He’s a good guy. He has good interpersonal skills. On the pitch, what weight falls in his court? What weight is falling in your court in terms of results? What is the team lacking to take it to the next level?
GG: As I was saying earlier, the most important thing is the player’s performance. We haven’t had consistent performances and it’s clear that there’s a learning curve. When a new coach arrives, a certain philosophy and way of doing things also takes time for the players to adapt. But if I look at the performances, if I look at the number of points we’ve got, we could easily have ten more points. I’m thinking of the Chicago game, which we’re familiar with and which we let slip away. I’m thinking about the game against Miami where we were at home, we were winning two nil, we were under control. The game against Red Bull, the game against Orlando, where they equalized in the last minute. So, from a performance point of view I’m very satisfied and have confidence in our coach. Now we need that extra level of concentration, we need the leaders also need to take charge of the team. We can’t let games get away anymore, because if we’re up by ten points, or even nine points in the standings, we’re in a very, very comfortable position. So, I don’t think we’re far from being there. But the same video can’t be played again match after match and puts us in difficult situations. I’ll give you another example against Vancouver, there’s no reason why we should concede that goal. No reason at all. Losing the ball completely in attacking play, counterattack and it ended up in our goal, with defensive errors in positioning and outright aggressiveness. It was 0-0 at the half and I think we’ve got a very good chance of winning this game, so it comes down to the small details.
Q :You talked about questioning, you gave examples of the number of goals conceded or the situation in Vancouver, from an administrative point of view, from an office point of view, for you, this questioning, what does it mean? What attitudes or behaviors have you seen that make you say there’s a need for a rethink?
GG: It’s more a question of awareness than of questioning, it’s about looking in the mirror and saying: no, I’m not performing well, I can perform better. So, the individual side and from a collective point of view. So, for us, in concrete terms, what do we say to each other in the administrative offices? Or rather in the sports world with the team? I was talking about the sporting philosophy earlier: do we have the players who really want to get involved for our club? That’s one thing. Do we have the right player profiles to be able to excel in the system of play we want to implement? That’s question number two. And that’s something I’m confident that with the team in place and Corey coming in, we’ll be able to target the right profiles for the style of play we want to play. The biggest problem or challenge right now is that our roster is completely full. So, we’re going to have to make some trades or move some players around before we can bring any in. But it’s clear that by the end of the year there’s more salary that could be freed up for 2025.
Q: You were talking about players who perform, but not up to expectations. Who are we referring to here?
GG: I’m not going to target any particular player. The players know that. I’ve met all the players. I’ve met all the players over the last two months, and we’ve had candid conversations. So the players know. I don’t want to name any player in particular. But it’s clear that from a collective and individual point of view, we need to defend ourselves better.
Q: Is Corey Wray a very short-term commitment? Is it long-term? Is he a regular hire? Is he a consultant? That’s my first question.
GG: Yes, but he’s coming in as a consultant for the next few months to help us, as I said earlier, get through the transfer market now, look at the workforce, look at best practices, help us define the whole structure we’re going to put in place with key positions. Also help us define the right profiles for the players in the system of football we want to play. And this arrangement with Corey is favorable for both parties. And as I said, I wanted to take a step back to analyze things properly. So that was my position, to really step back and identify things, just as I did from a business point of view.
Q: But in the medium to long term, at some point we’ll still be looking for a sporting director. Corey Wray is here to advise you in the short term. In the long term, we’ll reopen that.
GG: It’s not just to advise me. I’ve got a team around the table and it’s to enhance and strengthen our team, to be able to make the best possible decisions. And then time will tell. And when we’ve got the right structure, the right profile, both in terms of players and staff, because it goes both ways across the dimensions I mentioned earlier, we’ll make the more long-term decision.
Q: You’re currently in charge of the club’s interim Sport Director, as well as its President. Is that a lot of work, this double workload, and how do you see the coming months for your personal side?
GG: Yes, but I’m still club president and all the business side is under me. But as I was saying earlier, I’ve put in place people in whom I have a lot of confidence. But first, as I said openly, I’m not a marketing expert. Samia Chebbier has put in place to look after marketing. I gave you some stats on engagement recently. We put in place a new Vice President on the revenue side, who’s in charge of partnerships, ticketing, everything that sells at the stadium. And the results are very good. So, once again, I feel very comfortable with the people in place. We also have a Vice-President for human resources. So, these three people, along with all the senior managers and directors in place, I feel very comfortable, and the results we’re seeing here at mid-year, from a business point of view, are excellent. So, I’m very comfortable with that. And now I’m paying more attention to the sporting side, largely because I have this team which is very strong on the business side. And yes, I’m going to keep getting involved, rolling up my sleeves with the team, just as I did at the start when I didn’t have the people in place.
Q: Who exactly are the people around you in terms of sports management and who advise you, apart from Mr. Corey Wray?
GG: Of course, I named Daniel Pozzi earlier, and he’s in charge of everything to do with, let’s say, salary cap and MLS rules. And he was already very involved in terms of vis a vis contracts, player management in general. So, he’s been with the club for fifteen years and knows a lot about it. We have very good relations with MLS. We have Raffaele Frassetti who is our head scout here at CF Montreal. We also work with Luca Saputo, who is our bridge to Bologna. Now, Corey Wray will be joining the team, and we’re in constant communication with Bologna to maximize the synergies we can have around scouting. Just to give you a few figures. They have a dozen scouts who may have watched 1,500 games live last year. So, when they go to see matches, yes, they recruit for Bologna at the same time, but they also look for players who have the potential to come to MLS for our club. So that’s kind of how we’re structured now. Can we add to it? Absolutely. I mentioned the analytical side, which we want to do more of. That’s going to be a very, very important position. But right now, I’m going to take a step back with Corey and try to target people who will bring the most value in the short term. And then we’ll tackle the long term.
Q: (couldn’t understand it)
GG: Again, I don’t want to show my cards to other general managers who are looking for players, right? But, you know, it’s across the field that I think we can improve to be honest with you. So, I don’t want to give a specific position because I am talking to GM about you know different things that we want to do. So, I don’t want to leave my cards down right now.
Q: It’s about four or five years now that per the salary cap numbers the team salary in terms of payroll does not go up while other teams seem to go up. You talked about having your philosophy, you wanted to be competitive and you wanted to make the playoffs, how do you think the fans feel, that when it comes to payroll, you’re at the bottom of the league and I’m not just talking about the fact that you’re selling out Saputo Stadium and good for them, but all the ones that want to come or are at home or are watching on television or are reading it doesn’t say a lot of both the ambition. If you put yourself in the shoes of a fan, how would you feel?
GG: Spending a lot of money does not guarantee your success and out of respect I’m not going to name any teams here you can do the research yourself. Even last year, most of the teams with the lowest, I think, seven or the eight with the lowest payroll made the playoffs. So, we want to build a team here. We proved that that we can build a team here and it’s not a matter of necessarily spending an outrageous amount of money so that’s how we are anchoring our project. It’s around youth, it’s around local players and I think if fans are coming to Saputo Stadium they’re seeing attractive play, they’re seeing our local players, they’re seeing nice activities. We have, in my humble opinion, the most intimate stadium in the league as much as some want to criticize the stadium. It’s amazing the feedback that I can get. That’s why they come to the stadium. It’s affordable. So, our supporters do a great job to create a great atmosphere and yes, the performance on the field can be better. But we’ve done well at home the last I would say two or three years. Even last year, when the year was tough, we had some good performances at home and that’s why they’re coming. We represent our city very well.
Q: The message that I think we’ve understood is that the players that were sold the money would be invested back in. Kone, Johnston, Mihailovic, I would imagine it would be give or take 15 million. GAM on the trades of Torres, Kamara, Camacho, the list goes on and on, has this money been reinvested?
GG: Yes, it has the GAM that you are talking about has been reinvested. Yes, there have been reinvestments across the board and the lineup. So yes, you know, our ownership group gives us that flexibility. So yeah, I feel like, if you look at our roster this year, they have been some investments on key offensive players that we have added to supplement the team and to be able to be as mentors to the young players. I can think of Martinez and of Coccaro. Yes, our team is willing to invest if it makes sense and if it’s in line with our philosophy and that’s what I keep harping on, but that’s the direction that we will take.
Q: Two quick questions. If one of the best practices Corey Wray had to identify was to have an MLS Next Pro team. Is that a definite no or are there openings for that?
GG: At the moment, we’re not going into MLS Next Pro just to be clear. From an operational and financial point of view, for us, in our situation, in our club, it doesn’t make sense. We’re going to focus on youth. Now that we have MLS Next, we’ll be able to have U18s, U16s and U15s with older players. We’re going to bank on signing players, a young age that can incorporate into the first team where they’ll be developing. We’re also going to make use of the loan system, whether it’s the CPL or the USL, which has worked well for us. So we’re going in that direction, and Corey is well aware of that.
Q: Since the last time we spoke, there’s been some progress. We’ve drawn up a timetable, and we’re a little clearer about the Olympic Stadium. What do you think the domino effect will be? What about potential improvements to the stadium?
GG: We’re making improvements every year; we’re making improvements in the courtyards as I mentioned earlier in the premium section. But if you’re talking about a bigger project, if we don’t have the overall vision for the Olympic Park, what are they going to do? What exactly is the stadium going to be? We’re talking about a hotel. Do we know what the strategic vision is? A new CEO has been appointed. We’ve been in touch with her, we have a good relationship, we’re going to be meeting. But there’s been no development since the Olympic Stadium announcement.
Q: In terms of philosophy, you talked about developing young players and local flavor. Mo Farsi, Maxime Crépeau, Moise Bambito, how do we go about identifying and retaining the best Quebec talent? Is there a willingness to invest, as you mentioned in the recruiting department? Is there also a willingness to invest in training, detection and retention in particular?
GG: There’s so much talent in Quebec. We won’t be able to retain all Quebecers, unfortunately in our ecosystem, that’s just the reality. But in terms of MLS clubs, we’re one of the league’s top clubs, where Academy players are rising and contributing in terms of minutes. We were 20-25% last year. We’re pretty much there again this year. So the contribution of our Academy players in the first team is enormous compared to other clubs. Nathan Saliba, who wears the armband at the age of 20, was the one who earned it. So we’re extremely proud of that. We’ve got Mathieu and Sam, who didn’t go through the academy, but who’s been part of our ecosystem since he was young. In fact, he represents Canada and that’s something we’re extremely proud of. So we’re going to continue. And that’s where I was telling you earlier, we’re investing more in our academy. It’s an additional investment for the club to have three teams in MLS Next and the other thing I can share with you is that even in our pre-academy, in other words the youngsters who move up to the academy, I challenged the team when I arrived that I wanted to have 80% of the youngsters who are in the -13 and -14 categories and eventually move up to the 15. So, there’s been a lot, a lot of progress in identifying young people, people at a young age who are in our pre-academy ecosystem, who know our values, our style of play, the way we do things and who continue to evolve. It’ll never be 100%, because there are always young people who may arrive a little later, but we’re already doing a very, very good job on that. But I repeat, we won’t be able to retain all Quebec players and identify them, but we’ll make every effort to do so.
Q: Yes, Mathieu Choinière has been a bit of a whirlwind this season. Can we expect him to finish his season in Montreal? Is there any update on the case?
GG: We have an option on Mathieu’s contract for next year. Mathieu is a star player. The coach can count on him. So, our intention is for him to stay here for a very long time.
Q: Did you interview any other candidates for sporting director?
GG: When the event happened in May, I took a step back and spoke to various people, I spoke to MLS if they had any recommendations, I had also told them that I was moving towards a perspective of bringing in a consultant to help me think the whole thing through. So, they sent me a list of candidates. And there was also a list of potentials for the future if you were to go in on a more permanent basis. So, I took that list, I talked to some individuals and then we identified Corey as a potential candidate to come and help us, to support us at that level, because of everything that had happened in Columbus. One thing led to another, and we talked, and finally, he’s here today, and we’re very happy.
Q: Since the change on the sporting side when Olivier spoke to the media, he said that everything changed in 2022 when you came in and I’m just wondering what were some of those changes and what is some of the things that you’ve learned over the last three years in and around the sporting side that makes you confident thought that you can find the right structure?
GG: I’m not going to comment on what Olivier Renard said. What he said is for him. What I can say is that everything that we’re going to do going forward is to optimize the way, we’ve been working there’s a lot of people that contributes to Olivier and Vassili in this to get us where we are and we’re just going to build on that and to optimize the way we work.
Q: You said a few words earlier about the presence of girls in the academy structure. Obviously, there’s the Northern Super League coming up next year, and since the League announced the franchise in Quebec City, have there been any discussions about how you can facilitate the use of the stadium as a training facility? Have you discussed this?
GG: We’ve had discussions, yes. So, it’s clear that we’re extremely proud of our women’s program. So, for the young girls who are coming up, it’s another platform for them to evolve, but we’re not going to hide it. And that’s what I’ve been discussing with the directors of the new League: there’s a gap. So, is a young girl graduating from the academy at 18, let’s say, ready to make the professional leap? That’s where the gap is wide. So, right now, the avenues for young girls are, yes, to go professional, but there’s also a path that is, that’s really being used, and that’s American universities. So, we’re continuing to facilitate that, but it’s going to be a challenge, whether we like it or not, to bridge the gap between someone who’s 18 and being able to go pro. And we’ve talked to each other. We’re here for development, so there are young girls on the side of the new league who are developing the whole environment, the structure on their side. We want to contribute to the development of young girls. And yes, if there’s a game or two or three that can be done, of course we’re here to celebrate soccer. That’s our fundamental mission and vision. At Saputo Stadium, we had two matches with the Canadian women’s team. They were great successes in every possible way. So, yes, we’ll continue to support and encourage soccer.
Q: I’m backtracking with my MLS Next Pro question, if the step is high following a new league. Why is this gap correct in your structure?
GG: With all the mechanisms we have in place now, we sign 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds. That’s the reality. So, from the women’s point of view, I don’t have all the details, to be honest, but I was in a speech given by the Canadian national team coach at the Canada Soccer meetings, and she said that she had to make the team younger. The average age was one of the challenges for the upcoming competitions. So, I think there’s an evolution on that front. On the women’s side. But I’m telling you because we experience it on the men’s side, we sign players. Nathan Saliba is an example. We signed him when he was sixteen. Now with Alessandro Biello, we signed him at 17 and 18, so it’s getting younger and younger. That’s the reality of men’s sport. On the women’s side, it’s a question of time, and I’m convinced of that too.
Q: You talk a lot about young people and developing them, and then in training they’re challenged with pros, but we develop better in matches. You’ve got a lot of youngsters, you know. Biello, Doody, Jabang. There are a lot of them who don’t manage to get the minutes they need to develop optimally in this structure. There are no more injuries. There are guys who are going to get minutes.
GG: in the case of Jabang and Doody, they were injured at the worst possible time. I’ve been there, because when I was a young player, I got hurt a bit like Opoku hurt his ankle. Then it took a long time to come back. And now you’ve lost your window of opportunity to show what you can do. So, in concrete terms, I think all the players have a chance this year with Coach Laurent. It was also a question of bad luck for certain players like Jabang and Doody, who got injured when they could have had considerable minutes. So, they missed their window and now it’s up to us in terms of sports teams to decide: what do we do with these young players? So, we’re going to look for that and where you develop a game. But believe me, when you practice every day, if you’re sixteen, 17, 18 years old with first-team players, you’re going to develop. You must put the players in a match situation eventually. I agree with you, there are possibilities that we’re still thinking about in collaboration with PLSQ and Ligue One, like we did a game at the Olympic Stadium, if you remember, maybe a year and a half ago, where we did an all-star game against our team and there’s nothing stopping us from doing it here and getting a PLSQ all-star team together to do a few games. For the young players, let’s bring in the U18s. We can also add or enhance it with young players from the first team. It’s an alternative we’ll be looking at carefully.
Q: I want to go back to what you said earlier that the players need be better just to play at another level. Do you think what happened in mid-may contributed to that low performance on the pitch for about a month?
GG: I don’t think so when I saw the performance of the team against Miami. We’re top-notch and you can say well, maybe the team was only motivated because it was against Miami, but no I saw high levels of performance and as a player, having been a player, you’re way more effective as the coach rather than a sporting director or a general manager or president that affect you more. No, what really hurt us during that period were the injury at the beginning of the year.
And I just want to clarify something because I can say in French after that we looked into it very deeply as to why are players getting hurt? You know we had a bad spell of injuries and we compared the data to last year and even the year before. What I can guarantee is that this year we ran, in terms of the preseason, way more high intensity than we did last year, because the last year we learned that the high intensity was not there and when I say high intensity is we measure sprints, when you’re sprinting for a certain distance above twenty or twenty five km per hour. We did not do enough of those last year and that’s why when we start to do friendlies and even in the beginning of the games players were getting pulled muscle and pretty bad ones, so last year we corrected that and then at the end of the year we have had pretty much a healthy team throughout. This year, we ran way more than last year and we saw at the beginning of the year that we didn’t have many injuries We had very little tissue injury. Mahala went down and it was a rolled ankle, it was a hit. Matias Coccaro, same thing, and then Martinez during practice. Unfortunately, was a hit it wasn’t a pulled muscle like that. What happened with that is that it put additional pressure on the forwards, on Mason Toye, on Sunusi as well as Jules-Anthony Vilsaint. And then Mason and Vilsaint go down eventually. So, it was a cascading effect of people being overloaded that led to the injury rather than saying we did not run enough in preseason there were maybe a couple of weeks where, when I looked at the data, we could have run more to be honest with you but other than that it wasn’t the case. So, the bad sequence that we had was a lot due to injuries that didn’t help, but there was also the performance of the team, but I think since we lost that game against Hamilton, I believe the team has showed up to play every single game. The results have not all been there. We’ve been unbeaten at home since then. But the player showed up and now they have to show up with a bit more grit and a bit more quality.
Again, with all the potential we had and all the things that I said before is that we could have more points had we’ve been sharper, had been more focused, had been more disciplined. So, we have 12 games left. We got to get close to fifty points, we know that. So that’s more than two points per game. So, it’s there for the team to do something special this year.
Q: At the same time, you know you talked about his option contract. You know he’s got an option, everyone knows hes got an option but clearly he still not happy because he and his agent wanted to have the contract restructured. My question for you is, have you gone back with a restructured contract?
GG: I’m not going to negotiate publicly here. All I can say is my wish and the wish of the club is to keep here a long time.
Q: You mentioned you would like to add to the analytics or maybe open an analytics branch. The scout or scouts you want to bring in, do you want to bring in a scout with a general scouting, you want to bring in someone that does analytics? Do you want to hire one, do you want to hire two? Because from the outside, I think it has become apparent that this club has been needing to add help on the scouting side for a long time, there’s not enough scouts, the world is big, so is this observation new?
GG: Well what I mentioned before about maximizing the collaboration with Bologna. They have twelve scouts and even more across the world looking at fifteen hundred lives games right and looking at a player maybe thirty live games before they pull the trigger. So, leverage and we should be leveraging that relationship way more. So that’s on the scouting side we need some folks internally too to take a closer look at everything that happens in the MLS because you can do some really great things at MLS as well. So that’s what I say to bonafied and with Corey. We’re going to take a step back. But before you start scouting left and right, you need those profiles. What kind of profiles are going to fit in with the way that we want to play with the way that the coach wants to play are critical for the way we want to play. So yes, I think we can do more, but we have the luxury of having Bologna to help us out. So that’s how we’re going to leverage it. And I just want to clarify on the analytic front. Right now, we don’t have a dedicated person doing analytics per say. We do analytics on the performance side more than on recruitment side so that’s something. I would say from our recruitment side we are doing a little bit but clearly not enough.
GG: I think it’s a great avenue, but you got to find the right condition for the players. You have got to choose the right team; you have got to find the right condition and the right team. So that the player can continue to blossom and get minutes and Jonathan Sirois is a great example. So, I still believe in putting the young players on loan and there’s also the other side of being on loan and let me explain getting the players out of their house. If I can call it that where we are like the living at home with their parents and parents are taking care of them. So that they can live in the real world and really be on their own, that grows character grows maturity and we’ve seen that in players. So, there’s a sporting, I would say, advantage, but also a personal growth advantage that you can have from the loans, but the key thing is to find the right team that will have the many for the players.
Q: And so, in the analytics department, there must be people who are dedicated. Obviously, I think it’s a shortcoming or more, that it’s also been fairly publicized that CF Montreal was in classes more or less in the MLS at that level. Is this a desire to move the club in that direction? Does it come from this recent analysis since Olivier Renard’s departure, or was it something you started thinking about as soon as you arrived, or a little later?
GG: As soon as I arrived, I came from Deloitte, where everything is analytical and digital, so it’s in my DNA. I started by emphasizing business intelligence, so we were in the process of implementing it. I don’t know if you know of a CRM platform or Salesforce where you can get a lot of business intelligence into our supporters’ needs or make offers and so on. Business intelligence. So, I focused on that. But yes, I was asking, can we do more from an analytical point of view and from a business point of view? Artificial intelligence, what are the tools? So, that’s something I mentioned when I arrived.
Q: Is it better to win games 5 to 4 or one to zero?
GG: For sure, for the fans, it’s five to four at the stadium. But for me, as a former player, I was more satisfied with a zero. I was a central defender, so it was pretty easy for me. But now, at the stadium, if you ask me, five to four.
Q: Gabriel There was a picture on the academy earlier on, saying there were matches per U-16 event. It was written at the time. Then for U-18, it said League One. That was on the women’s side. Yes, that was right. The U-15 of sixteen and 18 will continue to play in MLS all over North America.
GG: Yes, that was correct. The U-15 sixteen and 18 will continue to play in MLS throughout North America. So the whole women’s side doesn’t change. Okay, that’s the structure we have in place, and then we’ll continue to evolve. Whereas the men’s side is the U18s. With the asterisk, we can have players. Some older players, U16s and U15s, are going to play in MLS Next. So when I tell you that it’s a higher investment for the club, the U15s and U17s make trips to Phoenix, make trips to Florida, so it’s an additional investment and so we’re going to be in the framework of MLS through the academy. And I repeat, we’re in the sport-study business. We’re the only academy with Sport-études.
Q: Earlier, you were talking about looking at the squad with Corey. If I understood correctly, there was a horizon that was perhaps a little further out given the reality of the salary cap and the players you have under contract. You can find a trading partner. You can perhaps have a interest in a transfer. There’s also an option if you want to move more quickly to buy out a potential contract. It’s a mechanism. Is that a possibility for this summer?
GG: We’re looking at all possibilities right now, whether it’s loans, buy-outs, trades. But if we trade, it doesn’t help us fill a position in the squad. We’re looking at every possible possibility to improve the team in the short term. And I repeat, without jeopardizing or considering our sporting philosophy, which we want to implement.
Q: Just to be clear, is the aim eventually to have a sporting director, or will that position be abolished?
GG: We’re taking a step back to define the organizational chart we want to put in place. If you look at the definition of directeur sportif, directeur technique, the league calls it a CSO Chief Supporting Officer VP sportif. There’s all kinds of different nomenclature. So we’re going to define a clear profile of someone who’s going to enhance our team. Whether we call him a sports director, technical director or whatever. What’s important is what are the tasks and responsibilities?
Q: And this person who would be hired, could we say that he or she would be more an executor of the Board of Directors’ wishes? Or would he or she be able to do as he or she pleases?
GG: It’s operating as he pleases, just as I make him operate as I please. So decisions are made as a team. That’s what happens in business, or even in sports and in important decisions. Of course, we rely on our Board of Directors, so everyone is accountable for their work.
Q: There are several important players at the end of the season who no longer have contracts with the club’s executives. There’s Ruan, Ariel Lassiter, Victor Wanyama, Gabriele Corbo and I think Sosa too. Without revealing names, have you started negotiating with these players? Would you like to sign one or two of them by the end of the year, or are you going to wait until the end of the season, to see if the team makes the playoffs, if they make a good run in the playoffs to announce something? How do you see signing the club’s veterans between now and the end of the year?
GG: I mentioned it earlier, I’ve met all the players, so it’s very clear in my mind and it’s clear in my team’s mind. Who wants to stay and who doesn’t? Because that’s important too. You must understand that if a player comes here through an exchange or whatever but doesn’t really want to get involved in the project. As I said earlier, we want players who want to be here. So, for those players, we’ll try to either move them now in the window if that’s possible or, if not, at the end of the year, but we’ll say our goodbyes. Otherwise, there are others, yes, that we’d like to keep. Of course there are. We’ve already started discussions because the transfer window is coming up very quickly. So yes, we’re looking at all the possibilities, we’re preparing ourselves and for certain key positions, where we can say quite openly here, we may be at risk of having some departures, but this window is going to be important to strengthen precisely those positions.
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