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Get to know new Atlético defender Loïc Cloutier 🔍

Atlético Ottawa have just announced the signing of CF Montréal academy product Loïc Cloutier for the upcoming season, having trained with Ottawa in 2024.


Cloutier, having spent last year playing with Ottawa’s reserve team, OSU Atlético in Ligue1 Québec, will officially make the jump to the first team for the upcoming season. Read our interview with him below:

You are officially an Atletico Ottawa player, how are you feeling?

LC: I feel very good, very excited. It’s been a long offseason but I just want to get started, and be with the team again. [I’m ready to] get the season going and play some football.

You took a gamble on yourself last year and fought very hard to earn this professional contract. Tell us how that feels now that you’ve signed.

LC: It feels even better to get it done. Last year wasn’t easy, being on the field, and being around the guys in the dressing room was good but coming into game days, and not being able to play [was hard]. I worked last year and got the reward, but the work continues

Tell us a little bit about your year in 2024, the minutes you earned and the experiences you had.

Loïc Cloutier following a pre-season friendly in Mexico. (Photo Credit: Chris Hue | Atlético Ottawa)

LC: On the pitch, the experience, what I learned, and what I was able to do in games translated to what I did in games with OSU. I think that it was good playing in a league that I knew [already]. I could look at what I did before I was with Ottawa in Ligue 1 [and compare] what I did on the pitch while being [in training] with the Ottawa first team. It was nice to see the improvement there. With OSU I was a leader on the pitch. I was a guy coming from the first team to a team in Ligue 1 Quebec so I had to be a leader and bring what I learned on the pitch in training into the games.

What kind of player are you? What kind of positions can you play and what style of play can fans expect from you?

LC: I’ve played all my youth at centre-back but now I’ve transitioned a bit to full-back too which is nice because you get to go forward a bit more and get into better areas [on the pitch]. I feel like I’m someone that’s comfortable on the ball and confident in possession. On the ball I like to play good football but defensively I love a tackle. In training, the guys up top are very big and good in 1v1’s so I love [that challenge]. My game is [centered] around being nice on the ball and very aggressive without it.

What are your aspirations for this season as a player and as someone who was in the stands last year as well?

LC: The aspirations are going to be the same as last year. [We want to] try to win as many games as we can but at the end of the day we want to entertain the fans, bring more of them in and make sure they get their money’s worth. They come here to watch games every other weekend so we want to give them the best performance that we can.


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