CF Montreal announced on Thursday that it has signed Canadian central defender Joel Waterman for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, with an option year in 2025.
The 27-year-old Waterman has played the past four seasons in Montreal and has amassed a total of 5,255 minutes since joining in 2020.
The centre-back reached several individual highs last season, including minutes played (2,673), starts (30), games played (30), passes completed (1,934) and steals (36).
He also made some contribution offensively with three goals and four assists.
Waterman has started in both of the team’s games on CF Montreal’s 2022 MLS Cup playoff run, playing a total of 161 minutes against Orlando City SC and New York City FC.
He completed the playoffs with an 87% passing success rate and finished first on the team with five interceptions.
In his second year in MLS in 2021, Waterman helped CF Montreal win their fifth Canadian Championship title, playing all 90 minutes in a 1-0 win over Toronto FC.
He also played three of the club’s four games in the 2020 Concacaf Champions League run against Deportivo Saprissa and CD Olimpia, then in 2022 played both games in the home-and-away series against Santos Laguna in the Round of 16 finals, as well as the first leg of the quarter-finals against Cruz Azul.
Internationally, the native of Langley, B.C. got his first minutes with the Canadian senior national team last November, playing a total of 109 minutes in two preseason games against Bahrain and Japan, in preparation for the World Cup in Qatar. He was also selected in John Herdman’s final squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup.