:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65548657/1164572509.jpg.0.jpg)
Montreal Impact today announced that Head Coach Wilmer Cabrera will not be back with the club for the 2020 season.
It won’t come as a big surprise even to the most moderate of observers but it does suggest new Sporting Director Olivier Renard is hot on the heels of at least one of his targets to lead the Impact into 2020, which kicks off with the CONCACAF Champions League.
The likeable Cabrera’s agreement with Montreal always looked like a short-term deal, barring a minor miracle happening on the field, and although the side prevailed over Toronto FC in the final of the Canadian Championship, it was not enough to convince the club hierarchy, the new Sporting Director, nor the fanbase.
Fifty-two year-old Cabrera arrived at the Impact to succeed Remi Garde in late August, and becomes the head coach with shortest reign in the club’s MLS-history. He’s also the third to lift a trophy, after Marco Schallibaum and Frank Klopas.
”I would like to thank the Montreal Impact for the two months spent in this beautiful city to work with the club. Our agreement ended, an agreement that, from the beginning, was planned for just two months.
“I am very proud to have won the Canadian Championship, a title much anticipated by fans and the club since 2014. I wish the club every success and I want to acknowledge the dedication and efforts of its outstanding players.“
Cabrera began the campaign at Houston Dynamo, from where he was released on August 13.
The new coach, given Renard’s background and contacts is likely to be another European and will be the seventh head coach in Montreal Impact’s eight-season-long MLS journey.
Of those, Mauro Biello has been the longest-serving, lasting approximately two years, while Jesse Marsch is the only one to have left the club and go on to greater things.
Marsch is currently making waves in UEFA’s Champions League with Red Bull Salzburg. He left the Impact amicably in 2012, his ideas on the future direction of the club conflicting with those of its hierarchy.