Alexis Sánchez is heading to MLS — and CF Montréal is the kind of club that makes you ask whether this is a genuine football decision or an act of institutional hope over evidence.
Chile's all-time top scorer (51 international goals) has signed with the Canadian side for the remainder of the 2026 season and through the 2027 sprint campaign. At 37, after stints at Barcelona, Arsenal, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Marseille, and most recently Sevilla — where he managed four goals and two assists in La Liga last season — the move is as much about finding a stage where he can still matter as it is about any tactical fit.
And in fairness to Sánchez, that logic holds. He's evolved into a No. 10 or false nine, slowing his game down rather than fighting his declining pace. A less physical league with more space and time on the ball suits that version of him. The 18-goal season at Marseille in 2022-23 wasn't that long ago. Neither were the 17-assist campaigns at Milan.
Montréal's problem isn't Sánchez — it's everything around him
Here's the issue: Sánchez arrives as the entire plan, not a piece of one. No other Designated Players. Two U-22 Initiative players in Jalen Neal and Hennadii Synchuk. A squad averaging 24.5 years of age. The club is 14th in the Eastern Conference and has made the playoffs once in nine years.
Compare that to how MLS has been doing these signings lately. Antoine Griezmann landed at Orlando alongside DPs Martín Ojeda and Marco Pašalić. Robert Lewandowski at Chicago Fire had Philip Zinckernagel and Jonathan Bamba supporting him from day one. Thomas Müller joined Vancouver when they were already leading the Western Conference. Son Heung-min walked into an LAFC side with Denis Bouanga already firing.
Sánchez gets Prince Owusu. Owusu is a real goalscorer — 10 goals in 17 games this season, 32 across 88 appearances for Montréal and Toronto combined — but he's never been part of a team that's sniffed the playoffs. That's the ceiling this roster has established.
What to actually watch for
The durability question is real. Sánchez's minutes dried up across his final European seasons, and MLS brings artificial surfaces, coast-to-coast travel, and a physical style that doesn't care about your reputation. The condensed sprint season format softens that concern slightly, and Stade Saputo's natural grass is a rare asset for an aging player's knees.
If he stays fit across the final 16 regular season games and the 14-game sprint season, Montréal have signed someone with the technical quality to drag a young, cheap squad into genuine competitiveness. Montréal's managing director Luca Saputo called it "an important step in our sporting project" and cited Sánchez's "leadership and competitive mindset." That's the honest version of the pitch — they need someone to teach as much as to score.
The betting read on Montréal's playoff odds shouldn't shift dramatically on this signing alone. One player, however good at his peak, doesn't fix a roster that ranks among the six worst attacks in MLS. What Sánchez's arrival actually signals is whether more investment follows. If it doesn't, this is 2016 MLS logic dressed up in 2026 headlines.
