Joel Waterman signs new contract with CF Montréal through 2024, with option for 2025

CF Montréal continued a busy week off the field on Thursday, signing Canadian centre back Joel Waterman to a new contract through 2024, with an option for 2025. 

After a career year in 2022, Waterman was in limbo heading into 2023, as his contract was up after this season, after signing on a two-year contract with two option years back in 2020. As a result, it was imperative that Montréal moved quickly to keep him around going forward, making it a key piece of business for the club to take care of to start this season. 

Waterman has played 73 games across three seasons with the club, including a career-high 33 games in 2022, in which he scored three goals and added two assists as Montréal ended up finishing third in all of MLS. Along with his strong defensive play, he was a big part of Montréal’s strong tactical identity, and thanks to that, he ended up cracking Canada’s World Cup squad by the end of the year. 

Originally signed out of Cavalry FC of the Canadian Premier League, where he was the first player to make the jump up to MLS from the CPL after playing 25 games in the league’s inaugural season in 2019, the 27-year-old Langley native is known for his strong passing ability, as well as good defensive positioning.

Now, in his fourth season with Montréal, he’ll look to really become a key leader for the team going forward, as they remain one of the youngest teams in MLS right now. Especially with fellow centre back Kamal Miller potentially looking to move to Europe this summer, Montréal will hope that Waterman sticks around, even if he recently attracted European interest of his own. 

And with this new contract, it indeed looks like he’ll be in Montréal for the years to come, and at the very least, should those links resurface, Montréal can be compensated handsomely for his departure, instead of risking losing him for free at the end of this year. 

Waterman and CF Montréal will be back in action on April 1st, when they visit the Vancouver Whitecaps at BC Place, in what will be a homecoming of sorts for the BC-born defender.