CF Montréal
Also written as CF Montreal.
The club
CF Montréal is not the earlier Montreal Impact of the old North American Soccer League: that lineage belongs to Montreal Olympique, who folded in 1973, and the Montreal Manic, who played from 1981 to 1983. The club covered in this dossier is a single continuous franchise founded on 10 December 1992 by the Saputo family, entering the American Professional Soccer League as Montreal Impact for the 1993 season. It moved through the A-League from 1995, the USL First Division from 2004, a season in the USSF Division 2 Professional League in 2010 and a single season in the revived NASL in 2011, before its Major League Soccer incarnation began play in 2012 as the league's nineteenth franchise and Canada's third MLS club, alongside Toronto FC and the Vancouver Whitecaps. None of that pre-MLS history belongs to a different club; it is the same Impact that later became CF Montréal.
The club rebranded from Montreal Impact to Club de Foot Montréal, CF Montréal, in January 2021. Owner Joey Saputo said at the time that "it's hard to let go of things you love. But here's the reality: to make an impact, we need to retire the Impact." The change was unpopular with supporters, who protested and in some cases vandalized stadium signage, and ticket sales fell. The club revised its crest for the 2023 season, shortening the wordmark to CF Montréal and restoring a stylized fleur-de-lis and traditional blue as the centerpiece.
The home ground is Stade Saputo, a soccer-specific venue that opened on 19 May 2008 and now holds 20,801. Because Saputo Stadium's 2012 expansion was not finished in time, the club opened its first MLS season playing its first six home matches at Olympic Stadium before moving into Saputo Stadium on 16 June 2012, beating Seattle 4-1 in the first match there. Olympic Stadium, capacity 61,004, remains in occasional use for season openers, playoff matches, international fixtures and cold-weather dates, including the second leg of the 2015 CONCACAF Champions League final. Joey Saputo remains owner, with Gabriel Gervais as president. The head coach for 2026 is Philippe Eullaffroy, appointed on an interim basis; the club had earlier parted ways with Hernán Losada after the 2023 regular season, and the sources read here did not establish the full coaching sequence between Losada's exit and Eullaffroy's appointment.
Recent seasons
Under Wilfried Nancy, who had taken over from Thierry Henry in February 2021, the club had its best MLS season in 2022, finishing second in the Eastern Conference and third overall, its highest finish since entering the league, and setting club records including 20 wins and 65 points. Nancy left after that season to join Columbus Crew. Hernán Losada was in charge for 2023 before departing after the regular season. Detailed results for the 2023, 2024 and 2025 MLS regular seasons were not established from the sources read here. As of 23 August 2026 CF Montréal sat fourteenth in the Eastern Conference and out of a playoff position, with a record of 5 wins, 6 draws and 10 losses from 21 matches, 29 goals scored and 39 conceded.
Honours and landmarks
Before the Canadian Championship existed in its current form, the club won the Voyageurs Cup seven times running from 2002 to 2007, and eight times in total. Since the modern Canadian Championship began in 2008 the club has won it in the inaugural 2008 edition, in 2013 by beating the Vancouver Whitecaps in the final, in 2014 by beating Toronto FC, and in 2019 under Wilmer Cabrera, again over Toronto FC. In the lower divisions before MLS the club won the A-League championship in 2004, beating Seattle 2-0, and the USL First Division Commissioner's Cup in 2005 and 2006, and won the inaugural USL playoff championship in 2009 by beating Vancouver 6-3 on aggregate.
The club's largest landmark on the continental stage came in 2015, when Montreal Impact became the first Canadian MLS club to reach the CONCACAF Champions League final, going out to Club América.
Notable scorelines
The 2015 CONCACAF Champions League final was played over two legs against Club América of Mexico. The first leg at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City on 22 April 2015 finished 1-1, Ignacio Piatti scoring for Montreal in the 16th minute and Oribe Peralta equalising for América in the 88th, in front of 56,783. The second leg at Olympic Stadium on 29 April 2015 drew a record 61,004 for a match between two Canadian soccer teams but was lost 4-2, Darío Benedetto scoring a hat-trick either side of an Oribe Peralta goal for América, with Andrés Romero and Jack McInerney replying for Montreal; América won 5-3 on aggregate.
Didier Drogba's arrival in mid-2015 produced the club's most famous individual scoreline: on 5 September 2015, in his first MLS start, he scored a hat-trick, the first player in league history to do so on debut. Drogba played 33 games for the club across 2015 and 2016, scoring 21 goals, including 11 in 11 regular-season games in his debut season, and was a finalist for MLS Newcomer of the Year in 2015. He left as a free agent after the 2016 season and signed for Phoenix Rising in April 2017.
In the 2026 MLS season the club has taken some heavy defeats, including 5-0 away to San Diego FC on 21 February and 3-0 away to Chicago Fire on 28 February, against a 3-0 away win at New York Red Bulls on 8 March. The club's all-time record win and record defeat were not established from the sources read here.
Head-to-head notes
The rivalry with Toronto FC is known as the Canadian Classique or the 401 Derby, named for the highway linking the two cities, and is regarded as one of MLS's fiercest rivalries; the clubs had already competed for more than forty years in lower divisions before both joined MLS. It peaked in the 2016 Eastern Conference final, a two-legged series whose first leg at Olympic Stadium drew the 61,004 crowd referenced above. Across all official meetings between the clubs, Toronto FC holds the head-to-head advantage, with more wins and more goals scored than Montreal; the exact all-time win, draw and goals totals given in different sources were not consistent enough to state a single reliable figure here. The club has also beaten the Vancouver Whitecaps in Canadian Championship finals, including 2013, and eliminated Vancouver 6-3 on aggregate in the 2009 USL playoff final; Vancouver is the third Canadian club in MLS alongside Toronto FC and this club.
Right now (2026/27)
Philippe Eullaffroy is interim head coach, assisted by Serge Dinkota and Sylvain Hascoët. The squad was rebuilt over the close season with the free-transfer signing of Alexis Sánchez from Sevilla, along with defender Brayan Vera, midfielder Wikelman Carmona and forward Noah Streit from FC Basel; outgoing players included midfielder Dante Sealy, traded to the Colorado Rapids, and goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois, who moved to FC Dallas. Prince Owusu is the club's leading scorer in 2026 with 13 MLS goals and 14 in all competitions. As of 23 August 2026 the club sat fourteenth in the Eastern Conference, outside the playoff places, with 21 points from 21 matches. The club's results in the 2026 Canadian Championship were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CF_Montr%C3%A9al https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_CONCACAF_Champions_League_Final https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_CF_Montr%C3%A9al_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Drogba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Manic
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.