A New Era of Female Soccer at CS St-Laurent
The 2025 summer season marked a defining moment for CS St-Laurent’s women’s soccer program. The club’s U-15 girls’ side captured the club’s first-ever female national championship, while its senior women’s team secured promotion to Ligue1 Québec. Together, these milestones signal a new balance of power at one of the province’s most storied soccer institutions.
Par Paula Rossi | 20 novembre 2025
For nearly a decade, CS St-Laurent has been a benchmark of men’s soccer excellence in Quebec. The club has lifted multiple provincial and national titles, produced Canadian national team standouts such as Ismaël Koné and Moïse Bombito, and built a semi-professional men’s program that has finished no lower than second since its 2022 debut. Along the way, the senior men’s side has hoisted two league titles and reached the second round of the 2023 Canadian Championship, where they faced MLS side Toronto FC. In other words, for young boys at St-Laurent, the pathway to the top has long been clear.
For young girls, however, that pathway didn’t exist. Despite generations of talent, young female athletes often had to leave the club to find programs that could support their ambitions—a reality that, according to Rocco Placentino, the club’s Sporting Director from 2012 to 2025 and now a strategic advisor at the club, is firmly in the past.
Under Placentino’s leadership, the club’s female membership grew from roughly 100 players to more than 500. This expansion has brought major competitive milestones, the creation of several elite girls’ teams, and a deliberate effort to recruit female technical staff and coaches.
In 2025—a landmark year for women’s soccer in Canada, marked by the launch of the Northern Super League which featured Quebecois side the Montreal Roses—CS St-Laurent made a historic investment in its women’s program; one that would pay off almost immediately.
The club’s vision took shape through the creation of a senior women’s structure uniting nearly 70 athletes across three competitive leagues: Senior LDIR, Ligue U21+ Espoirs Québec, and Ligue2 Québec, the second tier of semi-professional play.
As head coach of the Ligue2 squad and key architect of the senior pathway, Sidi Mohammed Farah explains: “From a sporting perspective, the primary goal was to align the program with the players’ development journey within the club.” He added that this player-first approach required building a robust structure with multiple competitive levels, establishing a bridge between the club’s youth and senior programs, and recruiting a vast player pool—elements that were key to managing injuries, school commitments, and other competing demands athletes face during a season.
This system laid a lasting foundation for elite senior women’s soccer at St-Laurent, while supporting its primary objective of reaching Ligue1, Quebec’s top provincial division, come the 2026 season.
Three generations of St-Laurent players share the field, as the CDC youth teams cheer on the Ligue2 side during their home match against Révolution FC (04/27/25).
That vision became reality on Labour Day night at Complexe Multisports Terrebonne, when the Ligue2 squad defeated AS Brossard 1–0 in the promotion final, officially earning its place in Quebec’s top league.
The Ligue1 berth could not have come at a better time. On the eve of the senior squad’s promotion, St-Laurent’s U-15 PLSJQ side—led by female head coach Kelly Singer— captured the PDP Cup in Vaughan, Ontario, with a 2-0 victory over provincial rival Lakeshore SC. In doing so, they became the club’s first-ever girls’ squad to both qualify for and win a national championship. and à le remporter.
In true CS St-Laurent fashion, the triumph in Vaughan felt like a victory on home soil. Beyond the dozens of travelling fans, the U-15s were cheered on by their U-17 male counterparts, who supported them from the sidelines before going on to earn a third-place finish of their own in the tournament.The moment represented more than sporting success; it embodied the spirit of United We Rise, the club’s motto. In St-Laurent, a community built on diversity, family, and unity, those values remain at the core of the club’s success on both the men’s and women’s sides.
So what can we expect from female program at CS St-Laurent next season? With a Ligue1 women’s team now established, St-Laurent’s U-15 trailblazers—and all aspiring female athletes at the club—finally have the capcity to pursue their ambitions right at home. Success seems well within reach. As Placentino puts it:
“We’re not going to Ligue1 just to participate—we’re competing for the championship. Hopefully, girls across the province will see that this is a program that takes women’s soccer just as seriously as the men’s, and that they can achieve real success here in St-Laurent.”