Montreal Impact: Firing Remi Garde makes sense, but not like this
On Wednesday afternoon, the Montreal Impact shockingly fired head coach Remi Garde and immediately hired Wilmer Cabrera. Sacking an underperforming Garde makes sense, but not like this.
Throughout the season, the Montreal Impact have outperformed their underlying numbers. They flew up the Eastern standings because they played more games, they squeezed out undeserving victories with late goals and scrappy defending, they got results without ever playing very well, which is not very sustainable.
As plenty of people highlighted earlier in the year, unless if their performances improved, their lacking play was always going to catch up with them. And over the past few weeks, that is precisely what has happened.
They have won just one of their last eight league matches, now have a -11 goal difference, — incidentally, goal difference is a far more accurate barometer for a team’s quality rather than the number of points, wins or other, more basic, result-based statistics — which betters only three teams in all MLS, and have now slipped to within one point of dropping out of the playoff places.
Consequently, with the playoffs seemingly slipping through their fingers, the Montreal Impact felt they had to do something. They needed to enact change, to inject some life into a limping end to an underwhelming season. And so, they did, in the most shocking manner possible.
On Wednesday afternoon, in an official statement from Club President and CEO Kevin Gilmore, the Impact announced that they would be firing head coach Remi Garde. Garde has largely disappointed in his role as head coach, leading his team to a 24-29-8 record during his near two years in charge. He also lost more games than he won in MLS this season.
But Montreal did not stop there. Rather than merely sacking Garde and conducting a detailed and deliberate due-process to find his successor, the Impact announced who would take on the head coaching role, none other than recently fired Houston Dynamo head coach, Wilmer Cabrera.
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Cabrera, like Garde, failed to deliver on a talented squad that has now slipped out of the playoff places after a scintillating start to the season. But a little over a week after he was let go by Houston, he finds himself back in the MLS playoff race, this time in the East with Montreal.
Given the underlying struggles of Montreal this season, moving on from Garde makes a lot of sense, especially if you are hoping to boost the late-season playoff push, which is now exceptionally tight. But doing so with such certainty, hiring a coach who has just been fired for the exact same reason Garde has been fired for, seems, at the very best, curious.
It should be said, Cabrera did get the Dynamo playing. He won the U.S. Open Cup last season and assembled an almighty attacking line-up earlier this season. But the consistency was off, his tactical tinkering infuriating, and he could not construct a consistently excellent side. In the end, it cost him his job. But now he will be asked to do the very thing that he failed to achieve, just north of the border.
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Montreal needed to move on from Garde. But whenever big change is made, the question of ‘what’s next?’ must always be asked, and in this case, the answer might not be a positive one.