For the fifth time in two weeks, the Chicago Fire are in action, this time facing CF Montréal at Stade Saputo north of the border.

After the Fire failed to get a result against Atlanta on Wednesday, the team faces added pressure to get a win in la belle province. Montréal are currently in last place in the 30 team league, and the Fire’s path to the postseason is paved with the team winning the games they should win.

The Fire are currently sitting on the outside of the postseason picture looking in, making this a golden opportunity for the team to seize three points and push themselves back into contention before the pack moves out of striking distance.

Series History

All time: 9W-8D-13LLast match: March 29, 2025: Chicago Fire  1-1 CF Montréal at Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill.Last away match: September 21, 2024: CF Montréal 2-0 Chicago Fire at Stade Saputo, Montréal, Qué.

What to Expect

CF Montréal

When we last checked in on Montréal at the end of March, they had just fired head coach Laurent Courtois five games into a disappointing start of the season that saw the team score just two goals and get one point in that stretch.

Well, the new coach bounce did… something for interim coach Marco Donadel and his squad: During the next five games, starting with Montréal’s 1-1 draw in Chicago, the team scored two goals and got two points, with the other coming off a 0-0 draw against Orlando City. Trust the process, I guess?

Things have improved – mildly – since then: Although CF Montréal are currently last place in the league, tied with the L.A. Galaxy on points but “leading” the Wooden Spoon race on tiebreakers, they now have three wins to their credit and have managed to find the back of the net slightly more frequently. How’d they do it?

Courtois had returned the team to possession-based football that resembled the fun-to-watch style that Montréal had used when Wilfred Nancy was head coach, though, unlike Nancy, he really didn’t have the talent at his disposal to push the team into competitiveness.  Donadel switched formations, going from playing three center backs that pushed numbers forward to a four man back line, and over time, changed up the tactics.

Montréal is now playing like they did under Hernán Losada in 2023: Against the ball, quick-transition-and-counter, attacks going through route one. When the going gets tough, the tough get uncreative.

Since the start of May, Montréal have had over 50% possession just twice over 13 league matches: Against the Philadelphia Union on May 3rd and against FC Cincinnati on June 25th. Both were losses, and both came against opponents that typically prefer less possession, winning games through pressing and transition play.

CF Montréal had under 50% possession in all three of their wins in league play this season, going as low as just 33% possession - a remarkably low amount of the ball for a game that ended in a 1-0 decision. They’ve had more than half of the ball in only two of their six draws (including against the Fire earlier this year). Donadel has obviously decided that his team has a choice between playing soccer and a chance at results, and he’s decided to go for the latter.

Adding insult to injury, Montréal recently announced the sale of center-back George Campbell to West Bromwich Albion in the EFL Championship, days after selling defensive midfielder Nathan-Dylan Saliba to Anderlecht in Belgium. The two were normal starters, having the seventh and eighth most minutes on the team, respectively. The two moves further reduced Montréal’s salary spend, which had already been the lowest in the league.

Normally at this point in the season, fans of Canadian MLS teams could at least hold on to the hope that they could win the Canadian Championship, the country’s domestic cup, thereby earning a spot in regional competition next year. Not so for this team, having fallen for the second year in a row to Hamilton Forge of the Canadian Premier League, where the outlay on player wages (and level of play) is typically far below what MLS offers.

Things are bad in Montréal, and it’s hard to see them getting better, barring a Christmas Carol-level change of heart from team owner Joey Saputo. That’s a true shame considering the how good Montréal’s fans have been, with supporters providing one of the better gameday atmospheres in the league despite poor results in recent seasons.

Chicago Fire

Ahead of the Fire’s midweek game in Atlanta, a key question was how much head coach Gregg Berhalter would rotate his squad in their fourth game in 11 days, with a fifth coming up just three days later.

Answer: Not much. Djé D’Avilla was given his first league start and Jonathan Dean was put back into the XI, but the rest of the squad remained the selection that we’ve become used to. D’Avilla had a decent outing in his 81 minutes, with some mistakes alongside the kinds of highlight-reel tackles that showed Fire fans some of the first flashes of why Berhalter and the front office felt he was worth such a rich transfer fee.

Will we see more rotation in game #5? It’s possible: The team has already played five hours of competitive soccer over the two weeks leading up to the match, with all but one of those games at home.

As Alex Calabrese pointed out, Maren Haile-Selassie has been making as strong of a case as he can for more minutes in his limited time. The Swiss winger has averaged just under a goal contribution per 90 minutes of play this year, and his two goals and three assists are each one shy of the numbers that Jonathan Bamba has been able to produce in over three times Haile-Selassie’s 498 minutes.

Maren Haile-Selassie’s numbers have been helped by game state, coming off the bench against tired legs, but that argument cuts both ways: Bamba hasn’t been effective at changing games recently, and is looking more and more like playing with few breaks for over a calendar year has taken its toll. Having Bamba come off the bench increases the chances that we’ll see the kind of explosive performances that delighted fans early in the year.

While I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Leonardo Barroso back in the starting XI, for the time being at least, Berhalter has precious few other choices on his back line. While John Thornton mused about starting Dean at left-back in place of Andrew Gutman on The Bonfire, I don’t see it happening for this one, with Dean having played 90 minutes, same as Gutman, midweek. Berhalter also seems to view Omar González as a better bench option than starter, and Sam Rogers had a decent outing in the position against Atlanta.

The real question is in the midfield. With Sergio Oregel Jr. serving a one-game suspension for yellow card accumulation, rotation will be necessary. D’Avilla likely started on Wednesday with an eye to keeping Mauricio Pineda’s legs fresh for a start on Saturday.

Assuming Brian Gutiérrez is a virtually locked-in starter, that leaves one spot left. Rominigue Kouamé was Berhalter’s choice off the bench against Atlanta and had a decent outing and is most likely, but there’s questions about whether he is ready for 90 minutes of action, having recently come back from injury.

Questions also swirl around Kellyn Acosta, who also recently returned from injury but who hasn’t played since a one-minute cameo against Charlotte on June 28th and whose only league start since April came June 7th against D.C. United. I wouldn’t read too much into seeing Kouamé start ahead of him, but it will be telling if he’s not a midfield option off the bench. Whether the “tell” is about his physical status after injury or of his standing in Berhalter’s depth chart is anyone’s guess.

Projected Starting XI

Match Information and How to Watch

Date and Time: Saturday, July 19, 2025, 6:30 PM CTForecast: Cloudy with temperatures around 25º at kickoff (upper 70s in freedom degrees)Location: Stade Saputo, Montréal, Qué.TV: Apple TV – MLS Season Pass