Red Bulls Trampled by CF Montreal

By Daniel Feuerstein | Montreal, QC | April 18th, 2026

Red Bull New York traveled to Quebec Province to face CF Montreal, who made a coaching change to shake up their side. As interim Head Coach, Philippe Eullaffroy used the entire week to calm his team down and get them to play free and clear. That was already a negative for the visiting team as the Red Bulls were trounced again by CF Montreal all over the pitch. The final score of this contest, as Montreal got the victory, was four goals to one.

As the opening whistle blew, CF Montreal went right away with the pressure offense, trying to force the Red Bulls to create a turnover. It happened once again on the distribution from Ethan Horvath. He tried to start the play up the middle to Emil Forsberg, but was intercepted by Prince Owusu and sent the ball toward Victor Loturi during his attacking run. Loturi just gets to the top of the area and blasts his shot past Horvath in the 5th minute.

Montreal would once again get a penalty against the Red Bulls as they attacked down the far side of the pitch. When the ball was crossed, Dylan Nealis, who was defending that side, had his right arm up in an unnatural position and inside the area for a handball. While there were replays of the ball hitting the back of Nealis, the penalty stood, and Owusu stutter-stepped it and converted the penalty with Horvath barely moving off his line in the 39th minute.

The restart of the match was the hope that the Red Bulls could turn things around, as Michael Bradley made three substitutions to change things up. It didn’t work right away as Montreal exposed the back of the Red Bulls and went on a breakaway. Owusu, attacking down the far side, had a defender on him, but the long pass to Matty Longstaff, who trailed the play, was all alone, taking the shot and roofing it in the 49th minute.

The Red Bulls got a lifeline from Montreal as Longstaff blocked a pass from Julian Hall, it redirected toward the back post and got inside of it in the 53rd minute. They still couldn’t connect anything to cut the deficit to one. They conceded one more goal as Kwadwo Opoku received a nice ball, all alone, and tapped it in to end the match. After a two-match unbeaten streak in league play and a three-match unbeaten streak in all competitions, the Red Bulls are heading back home to return to the drawing board for their next match against D.C. United.

“We had a really poor start this afternoon. Let a team that has had a difficult period. Let them grow into the game. Let them step up on us. Let them squeeze us. Let them turn some mistakes into chances. And so from the beginning, we were poor. Physically, we had nothing tonight in terms of energy, in terms of intensity, in terms of the ability to stay connected and step up, move over, sprint back when we needed to; we were, in those ways, really, really poor. And so when we got to halftime, and obviously we were down, we felt like it was an afternoon that we needed to make some changes, to get fresh legs and energy, and to really see if we could change the game,” said Michael Bradley

Red Bull New York took another bad loss away at CF Montreal, as they continued to get pressured, along with a very poor start to the match, will head back home to fix another issue after their victory in the U.S. Open Cup against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

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