AGR's High Press: 1 reason why each playoff-bound CPL team can win the 2024 North Star Cup
It’s the best time of the year.
After a gruelling regular season campaign, it’s time to kick off the Canadian Premier League playoffs, which begin this week in Toronto, where York United is set to host Pacific FC in a meeting of the #4 and #5 teams in the table, with the winner set to face #3 Atlético Ottawa next Sunday.
From that point on, it’ll be a two-and-a-half-week sprint towards the final, which will be held on November 9th and hosted by either Forge or Cavalry, who will face off in the matchup of #1 vs #2 this weekend.
There, all five teams will have dreams of being able to lift the North Star Cup at the end of the playoffs, marking the end of the CPL’s sixth season in style. If anything, the biggest question will be if we get a repeat winner, be it four-time winner Forge or one-time winner Pacific, or if we’ll get a new winner between the trio of Cavalry, Ottawa or York.
With that in mind, here’s a look at why each of these five teams could win the North Star Cup, in this week’s High Press.
Pacific FC:
5th place, 9W-7D-12L (34 PTS)
Pacific will win the 2024 North Star Cup because…
Their playoffs started in September
Often, momentum can be a big factor ahead of the playoffs, as it’s much easier to adjust to the intensity of postseason matches when one has already been playing games of higher stakes heading into it.
Because of that, Pacific will feel they have a key advantage as they get set for the playoffs, as they’ve been playing playoff-like games since early September.
Given that they sat as low as seventh place with seven matches remaining, they had to turn things up to end the year, and to their credit, they found their form at the perfect time.
Sitting with a record of 4W-2D-2L in their last eight matches, there aren’t many teams more in form heading into the postseason, which is important to highlight.
Plus, it’s worth noting that this Pacific side has experience in big games. Between Thomas Meilleur-Giguère, Josh Heard, Sean Young and Kunle Dada-Luke, they’ve got four players who were in the squad when Pacific won the North Star Cup in 2021, with Heard and Meilleur-Giguère starting that final and the pair of Young and Dada-Luke coming on the bench.
Along with Pacific’s continued success in the Canadian Championship, as they’ve reached the semi-finals in three of the past four years, they’ll feel that sort of experience can help them massively in these playoffs.
It won’t be easy, as the challenge of finishing fifth means that you need to beat all four teams ahead of you, on the road, to lift the title, but that won’t bother Pacific, who won’t need to hit a big switch as they get set to tackle this challenge. 
York United:
4th place, 11W-6D-11L (39 PTS)
York will win the 2024 North Star Cup because…
The power of the new manager bounce
A lot will talk about it, but it’s hard to quantify the true effect of the famed “new manager bounce”, as it can vary on a case-by-case basis.
For York, however, they certainly seemed to get the positive effects of said bounce - after Benjamín Mora’s arrival earlier this year, they hit a switch, one that even pushed them to first place after matchday #18 thanks to a run of 6W-3D-1L (21 PTS) in Mora’s first 10 games in charge.
They slowed down to end the year, as they finished with a record of 2W-2D-6L (8 PTS) in their last 10 games, which pushed them into fourth after once looking like title contenders, but it feels too early to suggest the new manager effect has completely worn off.
A big reason for that has been the mentality that York showed earlier in the year. Along with an improved defensive record, those are two big factors they’ll now hope pay off in the playoffs - a criticism of past York teams was that they weren’t good enough defensively to win those tight games.
Now, however, it feels like they’ve fixed that side of their game, as they’re yet to concede more than two goals in a game since Mora’s arrival, something they did twice this year before he was hired.
Combined with their new mentality, they’ll hope that can give them an edge in the playoffs, which can often be as much about survival as it is playing one’s best soccer. There’s a reason why many talk about cliches such as “defence wins Championships” and “winners mentality”, and it feels like this York side has it, with no better example of that than the performances of Elijah Adekugbe in midfield since Mora’s arrival.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Brian Wright (9G+6A) and Mo Babouli (5G+2A) can win games on their own, as that also will be useful to have in these elimination matches. 
Atlético Ottawa:
3rd place, 11W-11D-6L (44 PTS)
Ottawa will win the 2024 North Star Cup because…
They’ve got stars who can win games
A lot was made of Atlético Ottawa’s “Superteam” heading into the season, as they had conducted some strong business in the winter transfer window.
Unfortunately for them, despite being an early favourite to win the CPL Shield, they came up short in that objective, as a hot start to the campaign slowly fizzled out as the year went on.
The good news, however? Their late skid didn’t prove too costly, as they didn’t fall out of the top three, and they only lost one of their last 10 games, sitting with a record of 3W-6D-1L (15 PTS). Unfortunately, that clump of draws cost them a shot at the title, as turning even just two or three of those draws into wins could’ve put them right up the table, but they won’t want to dwell on that.
Why? Because A), draws are pretty valuable in the playoffs, and B), they’ve got players who they’ll feel can rise to the occasion in these big games.
To drive home the latter point, look at some of the names on their squad - Manny Aparicio, Ollie Bassett, Aboubacar Sissoko and Maxim Tissot have all won North Star Cups, while the likes of Amer Didić, Nathan Ingham and Ballou Tabla have played in some massive games in their time in the league.
You add in the options they have in the attack like Rubén del Campo (11G+2A) and Sam Salter (5G+2A), and it shows that they’ll have players to turn to in these big games.
That’s key because sometimes the playoffs can be a showcase of individual brilliance, one where teams will look to their best players to win them games. Ottawa has those difference makers available to them and showed that earlier in the season, when they were winning games - even some when they weren’t at their best.
And even though they’ve lost that winning spark as of late, they’ve got a strong enough baseline to not lose games, hence their recent rash of draws, so it’s not as if they’ll need their key players to rescue them - they’ll just want them to find the moments they’ll need to turn cagey playoff matches into ones they can comfortably win.
That’s a bet you don’t mind making at this time of the year, and Ottawa will want to prove that. 
Cavalry FC:
2nd place, 12W-12D-4L (48 PTS)
Cavalry will win the 2024 North Star Cup because…
There’s no greater motivator than heartbreak
At this point, Cavalry might feel that they’ll never win a North Star Cup.
After coming close in the inaugural season in 2019, falling 2-0 on aggregate to Forge in the first-ever final, they had failed to reach the final again until 2023, where a rematch with Forge awaited them.
There, Cavalry had looked likely to win it all, too - after the game went to extra time, Cavalry scored the first goal, nabbing a 101st minute goal through Ali Musse.
After that, however, Forge took over and scored the equalizer in the second minute of first-half stoppage time before scoring the winner in the 111th minute.
With that, it marked the latest chapter of Cavalry playoff heartbreak, which includes losing in extra time at home to Pacific in the 2021 semi-final and a dramatic 3-2 aggregate loss to Forge in the 2022 semi-final.
Yet, this has been the story of Cavalry’s existence. They’ve been excellent in the regular season, topping the table twice, but they’ve struggled to transfer that dominance to the playoffs, which has instead been dominated by Forge.
Now, however, they’ll feel they have what it takes to put that all behind them, and that heartbreak is a reason for that.
Often, teams speak about needing to experience the pain of losing before getting over the hump, and Cavalry can look at the experience of the past five years of playoff heartbreak as more than enough of a reason to fuel them towards lifting this year’s North Star Cup.
Because of that, keep an eye on this 2024 Cavalry team. One that only lost four times in the regular season, they could’ve very well topped the regular season table for a second straight year if not for a run of draws early on in the campaign, but they’ll be pleased they ended off the year with four wins and one draw in their last five games before the start of the playoffs.
Armed with difference makers across the pitch such as Marco Carducci, Daan Klomp, Fraser Aird, Shamit Shome, Sergio Camargo, Ali Musse and Tobias Warschewski, all of whom were on the team in 2023 except Warschewski (who is fresh off winning the 2024 Golden Boot, one might note), they’ll fancy themselves against anyone.
Now, they’ll just have to put the pain of past playoff heartbreak behind them, and no better way to start than with a clash against a Forge team that’s been responsible for a lot of that pain. If they’re to lift this North Star Cup, beating Forge in that first match would send a pretty strong message about what they’re capable of achieving, showing that this team’s for real. 
Forge FC:
1st place, 15W-5D-8L (50 PTS)
Forge will win the 2024 North Star Cup because…
They’ve been here time and time again
At this point, it feels hard to bet against Forge when it comes to the playoffs.
Yet, that’s what winning four out of five North Star Cups and reaching five straight finals will do for a team - historically, they’ve found a way to play their best soccer in the playoffs, as other than a perfect road performance from Pacific in 2021, they’ve been pretty much perfect in the postseason, and have a nice haul of trophies to show for it.
What’s scary, too, is that they’ve found a way to keep up a certain standard of success even as they’ve had to say goodbye to some crucial pieces, doing well to bring in new faces and not dip in level.
Plus, they’ve proven they can win finals in different ways, too, with 2023 being key in that regard - they won the 2019, 2020 and 2022 finals by going up first and keeping a clean sheet, but they needed to come from behind late in 2023, which is never easy to do in a match of that magnitude.
But those 2023 final goals sum up what Forge can do in big games, as Béni Badibanga scored a banger for the equalizer before Tristan Borges scored his now-famous Olimpico to secure the win over Cavalry.
Because of that, it’s going to be hard to bet against Forge in the playoffs, especially given they enter this season’s postseason as CPL Shield winners.
Thanks to top seasons from players across their roster, including Malcolm Duncan, Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson, Garven Metusala, Daniel Parra, Alessandro Hojabrpour, Kyle Bekker, Noah Jensen, Tristan Borges, David Choinière, Béni Badibanga and more, as well as from someone who isn’t here anymore in Kwasi Poku, they’ve got the pieces to do damage in the postseason, too.
Yet, that’s the challenge of beating this Forge team. They’re deep across the board, are well-coached (with Bobby Smyrniotis surely on track to finally win his first Coach of the Year award this year) and have the big-game mentality to get them through these matches. 
Plus, they love to chase history. After winning the first-ever North Star Cup, they’ve also been the first team to win back-to-back North Star Cups (doing so twice now) and became the first team to win the North Star Cup at home last year.
Now, they can become the first side to do the double of winning the CPL Shield and North Star Cup and can earn a historic three-peat (one that Pacific denied them of in 2021), two things that’ll be top of mind as Forge begins this journey.
As a result, don’t be surprised to see them get the job done again in these playoffs, finding a way to continue their dynasty as a side.
