Montreal Impact Head Coach Remi Garde listens to the anthem before MLS action against the Toronto FC, in Montreal on March 17, 2018.Ryan Remiorz
Rémi Garde wants an explanation of how Major League Soccer referees make calls, but the Montreal Impact coach is also aware that many of his team’s troubles are their own fault.
Garde, who joined the Impact in November from Olympique Lyonnais in France, said on Tuesday he hopes to meet with Howard Webb of the Professional Referee Organization to discuss how games are officiated.
“We need to know how things work because it isn’t clear,” said Garde, whose team has given up five penalties and had two players sent off in seven games. “Since the start of the season, anything debatable has gone against us. It’s frustrating.”
He said in some cases fouls that drew a red card for his players only counted as yellows when opponents did the same things, and he’d like to know why.
Forced to play a man short in two of the past three games, the Impact (2-5) have lost three in a row by a combined score of 12-4.
The Impact were coming off a 5-3 loss at home to LAFC in which they blew a 3-1 lead after defender Victor Cabrera was ejected.
After the game, goalkeeper Evan Bush called the red card “comical.
“And these guys [the referees] – you can’t even have a conversation with them to ask them what they saw. There’s a bit of arrogance there that needs to be cleaned up. Because if you don’t know what you did wrong, you can’t correct it.”
Garde also hopes to see a change in attitude from his players, who have conceded a league-worst 17 goals. They next face Atlanta’s high-powered attack away on Saturday.
“It’s a young team in terms of experience, but we need to raise our standard as a group,” he said. “Hating to lose, as a professional athlete, is a formidable engine.
“We can’t go through a match thinking we’re going to play kick-around, that we’ll have the ball all the time. That’s impossible. The opponents are going to have their strong moments and that’s when a professional tells himself ‘I don’t want to lose.’ “
He said goals conceded off corner kicks recently against the New York Red Bulls and Los Angeles FC were examples of moments in which his players were not aggressive enough in their defending. He added it will be worked on in training, along with other shortcomings.
He said players were losing balls too easily and must be hungrier to recover lost balls.
“It tough to get the ball back against some teams and we want it to be the same for them when we have the ball,” he said. “When we have the ball, don’t lose it quickly and stupidly on technical errors. For sure, playing hard is important but you also can’t forget skill and tactics.”