Giacomo Vrioni says his play will do the talking.
The recently acquired striker knows CF Montreal will lean on him to perform as the Major League Soccer team’s only designated player, and he’s comfortable with those expectations.
"I don't feel the pressure,” Vrioni said Thursday during a video conference from Montreal’s training camp in Florida. “If you want to give, if you want to push yourself, you have to live with (pressure). But I know in what team I am, I know all the confidence that team president Gabriel Gervais gives to me, the coach gives to me and all my teammates.
“Now the pitch is gonna talk.”
Vrioni, however, hasn’t quite lived up to the hype since he entered Major League Soccer.
The 26-year-old Albanian international joined the New England Revolution from prestigious Italian club Juventus in July 2022 for a transfer fee of US$3.8 million. He also led the Austrian Bundesliga in scoring while on loan at WSG Tirol.
In MLS, Vrioni has produced only 16 goals and three assists in 67 games, including nine goals in 31 appearances last season, when his salary was $1,947,500.
Montreal spent the small sum of $50,000 in general allocation money to acquire him from New England on Jan. 7. The Revolution also retained part of his salary to complete the deal.
But Vrioni said he isn’t arriving in Montreal with a chip on his shoulder. He’s excited for the new chapter ahead.
“They bought me because I probably fit the way that the coach (Laurent Courtois) wants to play,” he said. “I'm happy about that. The club believes in me, this is the first feeling that I felt directly after the trade."
“I don't have nothing to prove,” he later added. “Of course, I have motivation because I'm still 26 so I have a lot (left) to say on the field. I can say that I will give my maximum every single time on the field, and every time to the training, because I am a guy that works hard every single day, from the morning to the night.”
The six-foot-two Vrioni describes himself as a player who gets in behind the defence, creates space for his teammates by holding up the ball and is ready to do “all the little things” Courtois asks of him.
He and fellow new attacker Prince Owusu, acquired from Toronto FC, will carry the goal-scoring burden this season after Montreal declined the contract option of veteran Josef Martinez and loaned Matias Coccaro to Mexico's Atlas FC.
While Coccaro struggled to find his footing, Martinez spearheaded Montreal’s late-season run into the playoffs with eight goals in six games to end the year.
“What Josef did was extraordinary, especially at the end of the season,” Courtois said. “But sometimes because of the timing there’s turnover, it happens to all teams across the world.”
Martinez’s level of production will be tough to match, but team captain Samuel Piette believes Vrioni and Owusu can provide more than just scoring goals.
“I don’t think Josef was perfect in terms of overall play,” Piette said last week. “Yes, for a striker the important thing is to score goals, but I know that team’s project is about more than that.
“From what I’ve seen so far, the new acquisitions aren’t players who just stand in the box and wait for the ball to arrive at their feet or head. These are players who are really involved in building up the play, moving the other team, et cetera.”
Montreal plays its first of four exhibitions Friday afternoon against FC Cincinnati in Clearwater, Fla. The club returns to Montreal for training sessions at Complexe sportif Marie-Victorin from Jan. 26 to Feb. 4 before wrapping up pre-season in Orlando from Feb. 5 to 21.
Courtois’s side begins the 2025 MLS campaign against Atlanta on Feb. 22 and won’t host its home opener until April 12 against Charlotte FC at Stade Saputo.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 23, 2025.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
