Alistair Johnston

[FC_Hali]

I think Yao is MLS ready and next year could be his breakout. Could be an all CDN backline with the addition of Johnston.

[P-O]

1 hour ago, FC_Hali said:

I think Yao is MLS ready and next year could be his breakout. Could be an all CDN backline with the addition of Johnston.

Totally agree with you.

Playing in a 3 men defense will help him integrate the MLS.

I have big hopes for this homegrown.

[Obinna]

Strange move. It feels like Kamal to MTL, but he came home to find playing time. Johnston was already a locked in starter.

I resonate with those saying it's nice to spread out the Canadians throughout the league. The chemistry will obviously be a bonus though for both club and country. I hope Waterman still finds his minutes. 

Does this speak to ZBG returning to Europe? That was my first thought. He was linked with Brondby who are doing well as of late. Johnston is cover at RWB at minimum, but like others are saying I expect him to regularly play RCB.

[Craig11rm]

Choinière  Miller  Yao  Johnston Brault-Guillard

that’s a young back 5 but I think they have a lot of potential and they have 2 young promising keepers as well. Breza really impressed me in the games I watched at the end of the season.

[Free kick]

5 hours ago, Sal333 said:

This is what you said in your first post:

"I really dont see any kind of focus from them on developing their Canadian talent internally." 

Well, you need to develop your players.It's a long process.

Now you change it to how many have they developed. That's what you mean when you ask how many minutes did they play on the first team. I agree in the past they were terrible at developing Canadian talent but that doesn't mean they have been terrible of late. With Bisson44's names and mine we mentioned 9 players. Some of those players will eventually move onto the first team.  Having 9 prospects in the pipeline doesn't  indicate to me "a lack of focus on developing Canadian talent internally."

I didnt change one darn thing.  To build your team, you need to have a certain number of Canadian players on an MLS squad.  The point of having dev teams and dev squads is to dev cnd talent for the first team.   You can  also acquire cnd talent. You can do one or the other.  I suggesting that they are doing more of the later than the former.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Free kick

[PegCityCam]

6 hours ago, Sal333 said:

And also Rea, Yao, Ferdinand, Assi, Saliba, Zouhir. I don't where he got that idea  but it wasn't by looking at what CF MTL is doing.

Yeah I was scratching my head too...I only attended a handful of valour games this year but it was clear Rea and Sirois are very solid players, both developed at Montreal. 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

4 hours ago, Free kick said:

I didnt change one darn thing.  To build your team, you need to have a certain number of Canadian players on an MLS squad.  The point of having dev teams and dev squads is to dev cnd talent for the first team.   You can  also acquire cnd talent. You can do one or the other.  I suggesting that they are doing more of the later than the former.

People sometimes forget that MLS is still a single entity. It's difficult to see how Montreal will be able to stay out of MLS Next Pro given all the other franchises are confirmed as doing it because that points strongly towards participation being mandatory. It could just be a case of not being in a position to announce what they are doing in 2023 as an extra step of obtaining CSA sanctioning is still involved that they haven't got around to doing yet.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[Sal333]

5 hours ago, Free kick said:

I didnt change one darn thing.  To build your team, you need to have a certain number of Canadian players on an MLS squad.  The point of having dev teams and dev squads is to dev cnd talent for the first team.   You can  also acquire cnd talent. You can do one or the other.  I suggesting that they are doing more of the later than the former.

Yeah you are  "suggesting that they are doing more of the later than the former" and ignoring the fact they have 9 prospects developing to the first team. So tell me which Cdn MLS team has more prospects. You already admitted CF Mtl  has more Cdn talent playing on the first team so I won't ask you that.

[P-O]

11 hours ago, Free kick said:

How many minutes on the first team did those guys get this year?

Would any of these guys have had minutes in the MLS 10 years ago? Definitely.

The league is improving and these guys are going through the CPL loan process which is good for Canada, good for Montreal and they are playing every week.

I am mad Montreal doesn't have a reserve in the USL but I am glad they use the loan system wonderfully so far.

On the other side, is playing in a reserve league the best way to develop? Sure you have competitive games and you can train along the club structure, but a good loan is always better.

There was an article in The Athletic the other day mentioning 80% of the players in the Champions League were playing professional at 17-18 (first team or loaned to a first team), and explaining the benefits young players gets from fighting to be in the 11 and going for a real league. Is the CPL the best way? The kids sure are playing meaningful games and important minutes under their belt.

Would I love a U23 CFMTL team in the CPL? Definitely.

We will eventually see results, hopefully. For the first time in the History of Montreal, I trust that guy Renard.

Edited December 24, 2021 by P-O

[RS]

2 hours ago, Sal333 said:

So tell me which Cdn MLS team has more prospects.

Vancouver and Toronto, by virtue of having actual reserve teams, have more prospects in their respective pipelines than Montreal does.

Montreal's loan army is impressive, but by sheer numbers they'll continue to be No. 3 until they get themselves into MLS Next.

[Sal333]

41 minutes ago, RS said:

Vancouver and Toronto, by virtue of having actual reserve teams, have more prospects in their respective pipelines than Montreal does.

Montreal's loan army is impressive, but by sheer numbers they'll continue to be No. 3 until they get themselves into MLS Next.

Yeah and what players have these reserve teams fed to the first teams?

On another site someone posted an interview with Olivier Renard, Montreal's sporting director. It's in French and doesn't have a translation option but I'll post it here if people want it. In it he says many MLS teams are working within limited budgets. He was not impressed with the results of reserve teams and chose to spend his budget differently. He has been here only a short time but I trust him. CF Mtl played the most Canadians this year so he sees the value of Canadians on his team. He said he sees the CPL as a development vehicle and hopes that he'll be able to loan out more than 5 players to that league. Apparently there's a cap to the number of players a MLS team can loan to the CPL

Edited December 24, 2021 by Sal333

[Free kick]

37 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

Yeah and what players have these reserve teams fed to the first teams?

On another site someone posted an interview with Olivier Renard, Montreal's sporting director. It's in French and doesn't have a translation option but I'll post it here if people want it. In it he says many MLS teams are working within limited budgets. He was not impressed with the results of reserve teams and chose to spend his budget differently. He has been here only a short time but I trust him. CF Mtl played the most Canadians this year so he sees the value of Canadians on his team.

your first paragraph is making the same point that I was making earlier.   In that,  the ultimate success criteria is how many players you feed into the first team and how many of those become MLS regulars.  Anybody can loan out players.  
 

your second paragraph also supports what I said earlier,  that these decision are all based on budgetary constraints.  Of course, Renard  will sugar coat it a bit and say he is spending his money differently.   Keep in mind,  when you loan a kid out,  you don’t have to bear anymore costs for his development.   So loaning all these kids out, saves money.  Other way to put it,  they cut back on the development budget by loaning out players and that are going to take these savings to spend it on the first team by acquiring their Canadian talent that way. Like they are doing with Miller and Johnston.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Free kick

[RS]

22 minutes ago, Sal333 said:

Yeah and what players have these reserve teams fed to the first teams?

How does that change the validity of my answer? You asked which Canadian MLS teams have more prospects than Montreal, and I gave you the answer.

None of the three teams have proven very good at developing first-team players outside of a tiny number of outliers, so I'm not sure why you're thumping your chest for a strategy that is admittedly driven by budgetary concerns.

There's nothing stopping teams from having both a reserve side and using loans as a developmental tool. That would be the optimal scenario for any of the three MLS clubs.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

3 hours ago, P-O said:

...Would I love a U23 CFMTL team in the CPL? Definitely...

TFC actually actively pursued having a team like that in CanPL before the league launched. To say it didn't go down well in CanPL circles would be an understatement despite the many obvious advantages for Canadian soccer if more of the best young Canadian prospects were playing in the league. It's far from inconceivable that the emergence of MLS Next Pro was inspired in part by the CSA's refusal to allow future USL sanctioning where Vancouver and Montreal reserve teams were concerned. It's more difficult to deny sanctioning when it's an integral part of MLS that is involved.

[Free kick]

Ps. :  Renard is going to be on Tony Marinaro’s show in the next 10 mins to discuss the Johnston acquisition.

 

edit:  turns out it wasn’t Renard himself but a recording of a press interview.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Free kick

[Free kick]

MLS | Le CF Montréal acquiert Alistair Johnston | La Presse

Interesting info from that article that i wasn't aware of:

Quote:

"L’arrière droit ne se retrouvera pas en territoire inconnu au Québec. Natif de Vancouver, il a déménagé à Montréal avec ses parents quand il avait quatre ans. 
Il jouait alors avec le Club de soccer du Lakeshore, à Kirkland. Sa famille a quitté Montréal pour Aurora, en Ontario, quand il avait sept ans. D’ailleurs, fait intéressant : Johnston parle le français."  

 

Its says that he has previously lived in Montreal (after his parents moved from Vancouver) and that he can speak French.

 

 

[GasPed]

4 minutes ago, Free kick said:

MLS | Le CF Montréal acquiert Alistair Johnston | La Presse

Interesting info from that article that i wasn't aware of:

Quote:

"L’arrière droit ne se retrouvera pas en territoire inconnu au Québec. Natif de Vancouver, il a déménagé à Montréal avec ses parents quand il avait quatre ans. 
Il jouait alors avec le Club de soccer du Lakeshore, à Kirkland. Sa famille a quitté Montréal pour Aurora, en Ontario, quand il avait sept ans. D’ailleurs, fait intéressant : Johnston parle le français."  

 

Its says that he has previously lived in Montreal (after his parents moved from Vancouver) and that he can speak French.

 

 

Wow.  Doesn't that say that he was only in Montreal for 3 years (ages 4 to 7)?  And he can still speak French?  Impressive.  (Please correct my translation if I'm wrong - it has been a long time since my high school French days. 😀)

[Free kick]

7 minutes ago, GasPed said:

Wow.  Doesn't that say that he was only in Montreal for 3 years (ages 4 to 7)?  And he can still speak French?  Impressive.  (Please correct my translation if I'm wrong - it has been a long time since my high school French days. 😀)

Yes.  But there is no mention of how proficient or fluent his is.   Worth noting,  the younger you are when you learn a language,  the easier it is to retain it.  

 

PS.:  that article might also be wrong.  it says Aurora.  But i thought he is from Ajax.

Edited December 24, 2021 by Free kick

[rydermike]

18 minutes ago, Free kick said:

Yes.  But there is no mention of how proficient or fluent his is.   Worth noting,  the younger you are when you learn a language,  the easier it is to retain it.  

 

PS.:  that article might also be wrong.  it says Aurora.  But i thought he is from Ajax.

Nope, Aurora. His wiki page has mentions that (and the Quebec residency) 

[Sal333]

2 hours ago, Free kick said:

MLS | Le CF Montréal acquiert Alistair Johnston | La Presse

Interesting info from that article that i wasn't aware of:

Quote:

"L’arrière droit ne se retrouvera pas en territoire inconnu au Québec. Natif de Vancouver, il a déménagé à Montréal avec ses parents quand il avait quatre ans. 
Il jouait alors avec le Club de soccer du Lakeshore, à Kirkland. Sa famille a quitté Montréal pour Aurora, en Ontario, quand il avait sept ans. D’ailleurs, fait intéressant : Johnston parle le français."  

 

Its says that he has previously lived in Montreal (after his parents moved from Vancouver) and that he can speak French.

 

 

Lol! Probably Franglais more than Francais.

[CCrTFC]

Aurora High School is a French Immersion school.  My friend went there and he even did Math and Science in French.

[maccaliam]

4 minutes ago, CCrTFC said:

Aurora High School is a French Immersion school.  My friend went there and he even did Math and Science in French.

I was wondering if this might be the case. 

[CanMNT Memes]

 

[reggietfc]

43 minutes ago, CanMNT Memes said:

 

the best all canadian back line since the days of brennen,braz,reda,poz

[Sal333]

1 hour ago, CanMNT Memes said:

 

 

22 minutes ago, reggietfc said:

the best all canadian back line since the days of brennen,braz,reda,poz

Guys, the backline is only 2/3s Canadian proof.