LOUISVILLE, KY – FC Montreal won 4-0 against Louisville City FC Wednesday night as Alessandro Riggi scored a brace in the first half at Louisville Slugger Field.
Winger Alessandro Riggi scored two similar goals in the first half for FC Montreal. In the 4th minute, on a spin around in the offensive zone, forward Jacques Haman passed down the right for winger Frédéric Lajoie-Gravelle. He found Riggi in the box, who easily shot low to open the scoring. In the 19th minute, Lajoie-Gravelle found Riggi again on the left side who scored in the same fashion to double the lead.
“We worked on the quick offensive transition this week in training,” admitted Alessandro Riggi. “That’s what we did twice and I only had to push the ball behind the goal line.”
“It takes confidence,” said head coach Philippe Eullaffroy. “It’s this confidence in our qualities and our game principles. We know we can handle the best teams in the league. They beat us in our own stadium; the best way to reply was to do the same.”
The Bleu-blanc-noir continued its pace early on. In the 21st minute, midfielder Zakaria Messoudi entered the box before giving the ball to Haman down the left. The Cameroon native beat goalkeeper Scott Goodwin with a low shot.
At the end of the game, FC Montreal continued to press. On a counterattack, Victor Omar Ndiaye dribbled into the box. After making the defenders back up, he passed back to winger Fabio Morelli who scored the final goal for Montreal.
“We go into each game showing that our team works hard and can get a result against anyone,” added Riggi.
Goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, who was named to the USL team of the week, did a tremendous job in front of goal to secure the clean sheet. He made two consecutive stop in the 53rd minute, first on Matt Fondy, then on Ilija Ilic, both times alone against the forwards.
“We always say that the individual performance is interesting if it comes from the collective performance and today, that’s what we had,” explained Eullaffroy. “Collectively, we showed that we were united and the individual qualities emerged.”
FC Montreal will play its next game Saturday against Saint Louis FC at 8:30pm ET at the World Wide Technology Soccer Park.
LINEUPS
FC Montréal: Maxime Crépeau; Janouk Charbonneau, Mitchel Bringolf, Jonathan Grant, Zachary Sukunda; Louis Béland-Goyette, Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé (Marco Dominguez 77’), Alessandro Riggi (Yacine Ait Slimane 71’), Zakaria Messoudi (Fabio Morelli 82’), Frédéric Lajoie-Gravelle (Aron Mkungilwa 85’); Jacques Haman (Victor Omar Ndiaye 64’)
Subs not used: David Paulmin,
Louisville City FC: Scott Goodwin; Kevin Cossette (Enrique Montano 46’), Conor Shanosky, Tarek Morad, Bryan Burke; Niall McCabe, Juan Guzman, Charlie Adams (Ilija Ilic 46’), Kadeem Dacres, Magnus Rasmussen (Nathan Polak 64’); Matt Fondy
GOALS
MTL: Alessandro Riggi 4’
MTL: Alessandro Riggi 19’
MTL: Jacques Haman 21’
MTL: Fabio Morelli 89’
CAUTIONS
MTL: Maxime Crépeau 72’
MTL: Victor Omar Ndiaye 81’
