Ottawa Fury traveled to Montreal on Thursday to prepare for their preseason friendly with FC Montreal, taking place on Friday afternoon. It will be the clubs third match of the preseason schedule, having beaten Toronto FC II and drawing Rochester Rhinos in the previous two weeks.

Marc Dos Santos has indicated the club will once again rest Mauro Eustaquio and captain Richie Ryan, as he is not willing to risk aggravating any knock for a friendly match. This means that we could likely see Phil Davies start in the defensive midfield position once again, with the young Canadian having held his own last Friday vs Rochester.

Ottawa Fury will face FC Montreal, Impact’s academy squad in the USL, at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, behind closed doors. The match will be less than 48 hours after Impact played a Champions League match in front of tens of thousands on the same pitch. Following the draw against the Rhinos at Complexe Branchaud-Brière, Dos Santos mentioned how it was hard to make a 4-3-3 formation work on such a small field, and believes that playing on the regulation sized pitch at Olympic Stadium will bring out the best of his tactics.

Fury will likely go with two separate squads for each half as he gives the players on last chance to show their skill before they head down to to the states for their final two preseason games, where Dos Santos will likely go with what he believes will be his starting XI.

Fury have pretty much locked up their roster for the beginning of the NASL season, however Dos Santos did indicate in his Rhino’s post-match interview that there could be a spot to fill should the right person come along. Jarun’s wages have been freed up since his departure from the club last week, giving Dos Santos some money to work with. However, if Dos Santos did bring someone in, they’d need to be a game changing player who will increase the level of play, and at this time of the season those types of players are hard to come by. Nothing is certain but Dos Santos has planted a few seeds over the last week regarding an open roster position, so he could very well be working on something.

Stay tuned to my twitter feed (@FuryFanatic) for live play-by-play of this friendly, as well as a review of how the boys fared in Montreal.