On Tuesday morning a story was published by Jeremy Filosa who wrote for 98.5FM Radio, a local French radio, confirming an altercation. After an amazing season that saw CF Montreal break every team record imaginable, they find themselves in a precarious situation regarding Wilfried Nancy.
On July 9, CF Montreal hosted Sporting Kansas City at Saputo Stadium which at the time was one of the worse teams in the league. The team was missing Djordje Mihailovic who at the time was recovering from an injury and at that time the team had a record of 9-7-2.
During the game, Romell Quioto committed an egregious error that led to a bad goal as Roger Espinosa was able to lob Sebastien Breza the starting keeper from mid-field and they lost their third straight game.
After the loss, a furious Joey Saputo ran down to the locker room wanting to talk to his players but Nancy stood in the doorway and wouldn’t let him in. An intense argument ensued where bad words were thrown and the drama began.
Apparently, Saputo didn’t appreciate how the goalkeeping situation was being handled as Both Breza and James Pantemis were flip-flopping but at the time Breza was getting the majority of the starts. After that game, Pantemis resumed his number-one spot.
Right after the altercation, Saputo ran back up to the second floor to talk to his CEO Gabriel Gervais an ex-Montreal Impact player, and JF Teontonio a beat reporter from La Presse witnessed the discussion. He ended up reporting the story in his paper.
After the incident, most players thought Nancy would either quit and leave or was going to be fired but after a meeting with Olivier Renard and Gervais, they agreed not to do anything. Nancy then spoke to his team as he was contemplating leaving but after a productive talk, he decided to stay.
Nancy had two conditions for staying stating that there will be no contract talks during the season and that his option for this upcoming season not be used till he makes up his decision which both Renard and Gervais obliged to keep their coach who was nominated for the coach of the year.
The team decided to respond and bounced back in great fashion only losing one game in the second half of the season rallying around their coach. A few days after the incident Nancy met the media and Teontonio asked a question about the altercation.
“I have a delicate question, last Saturday after the loss we saw Joey Saputo who seemed angry close to the press conference room what do you think had made him so angry.”
Nancy who as usual in his calm self answered the question. “The fact we lost to a team who was in last place probably irritated him and on my end, I have been here for a very long time and I have seen a lot of things. I have no problem with how people run their business but I have values that I will never change”.
What does this mean for Nancy, Montreal?
The head coach has been with the team for 12 years now and he has lived through a lot of difficult situations witnessing coaches like Mauro Biello, Jason Di Tullio and Nick De Santis who were all fired despite having successful seasons with the club.
Filosa also confirmed in his article that Nancy in the wake of all this has changed agents and has now signed with Ron Waxman. Also, rumors were circulating that his salary as coach was the lowest in the league but he is not the type of person to leave because of that.
For now, he is under contract unless the team decides to authorize another team to talk to him if they wanted to hire him. There was a rumor at the end of the season reported by Tom Bogert from the MLS saying that the Columbus Crew were interested in signing him.
Renard at the end of the season press conference responded with the following ” If they contacted him without our approval that’s a problem, they need to go through us if they wanted to talk to him to discuss a coaching opportunity”. Gervais did confirm to 98.5FM that they would open to a long-term deal with Nancy and that Saputo approved it.
Saputo actually came into the dressing after they lost to NYCFC in the semifinals to congratulate his team so Gervais believes the rift is over. What happens next remains to be seen if Nancy will move on or if he decides to stay long-term with the club.
