Can Atlético Ottawa bring it all together with more balanced approach in 2025? | SEASON PREVIEW 🇨🇦
The 2025 Canadian Premier League season kicks off April 5, as Canada’s top-flight domestic league enters its seventh season.
In the lead-up to matchday one, we at CanPL.ca will have all you need to know about each of the league’s eight clubs. To see every CPL team’s season preview, click here.
As they begin their sixth season, Atlético Ottawa once again enter the new campaign with high expectations – both internally and externally.
In 2024 they returned to the playoffs after missing out in 2023, something they are looking to repeat in 2025. While their “super team” a year ago was unable to bring any trophies back to Ottawa, it was undoubtedly a year of growth in which they were the best team in the league for stretches of the season before finishing in third place. They beat York United in the league’s first penalty shootout in the playoffs before being knocked out by CPL Shield winners Forge FC in the semifinals, agonizingly close to getting back to the CPL Final for the first time since hosting it in 2022.
Led by new head coach Diego Mejía, Ottawa wants to lock itself in among the league’s elite teams, joining the so-called “big two” of Forge and Cavalry, and beating one of them to a trophy this season would certainly see them stake a claim.
Story of 2024
- 2024 CPL regular season record (W-D-L): 11-11-6 (44 pts, 3rd place)
- Goals scored: 42
- Goals against: 31
- Goal difference: +11
- Top scorer: Rubén del Campo (11)
- Canadian Championship: Lost in the quarter-finals to Pacific FC
Just like in 2023, it was a tale of two halves of the season for Ottawa, who started the season incredibly well before slipping down the table late in the year.
A nine-game unbeaten run to begin the campaign had them looking like the super team that they built in the offseason, and the team was in first place for 14 consecutive weeks, and in first as late as matchday 21. They hit a wall in the second half of the year, though, winning just three of their final 14 matches and dropping to third place, missing out on the opportunity to host the CPL Final.
They won their first game back in the postseason, beating York United on penalties after an intense 120 minutes, booking their spot in the semifinal. There they lost to the other Ontario club Forge FC, ending their season without either of the trophies they so badly craved.
At the end of the year the club parted ways with head coach Carlos González after three seasons together.
Arrivals and Departures
Players in: |
Players out: |
| GK – Tristan Crampton | GK – Rayane Yesli |
| DF – Noah Abatneh | DF – Matteo de Brienne |
| DF – Loïc Cloutier | DF – Jesús Del Amo |
| DF – Joaquim Coulanges | DF – Dani Morer |
| DF – Brett Levis | DF – Zachary Roy |
| DF – Iker Moreno (on loan) | DF – Luke Singh |
| MF – Juan Castro | DF – Maxim Tissot |
| MF – Kevin Ortega (on loan) | MF – Ollie Bassett |
| MF – David Rodríguez (on loan) | MF – Liberman Torres |
| FW – Monty Patterson | MF – Ilias Iliadis |
| FW – Rubén Del Campo | |
| FW – Kris Twardek |
Atlético Ottawa lost several key players this offseason, but once again made several of the biggest signings of the offseason.
Gone are Ollie Bassett and Rubén del Campo, the last two CPL Golden Boot winners, and in Bassett’s case also a former CPL Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year. Matteo de Brienne was sold to the Swedish top flight, while Rayane Yesli, Luke Singh and Kris Twardek made moves to other CPL clubs, and Maxim Tissot retired, among others.
A lot of quality players left the club, but they are also confident in the players brought in to replace them.
Centre-back Noah Abatneh is one of the favourites for the U21 Canadian Player of the Year award this season after being nominated last year, and made the move across Ontario this winter from York United. Brett Levis is the club’s new left-back, returning to the league after previously starring at Valour FC before moving stateside.
Up top, the club is high on New Zealand international striker Monty Patterson, who has a strong track record overseas at club level, and once scored in a match against the United States national team.
They have promoted a couple of players from local clubs, and there will of course be the usual contingent of players joining the club from other branches of the Atleti family too. Midfielder Juan Castro signed permanently from San Luis, joined in the capital by a young Mexican trio on loan: midfielders David Rodriguez and Kevin Ortega and defender Iker Moreno.
2025 Outlook
While their “super team” was unable to meet their lofty expectations in 2024, the club’s fans and the team itself all anticipate competing for trophies again in 2025. With new head coach Diego Mejía at the helm, the playoffs seem like a requirement at the very least, with a real emphasis on adding more silverware to the cabinet that holds the 2022 CPL Shield.
Mejía has indicated that the club will look different tactically in 2025 than it did over the past few seasons under Carlos González. While González defaulted to a more defensive style of football that struggled at times to get the best from his attacking options, Mejía has spoken in preseason about wanting to be the aggressors and play games on the front foot.
They’re going to need it, with almost half of their goals from 2024 need to be replaced with several star players departing in the offseason including Golden Boot runner up Ruben del Campo. Another story to watch will focus on just that – how will highly-touted New Zealand international striker Monty Patterson perform in his debut CPL campaign, and can Ballou Tabla have a bounceback season after only finding the back of the net twice last year?
Key players stepping up when it counts is what separates good clubs from great ones, and Ottawa will be hoping to be the latter a year after letting the CPL Shield slip away and losing in the playoff semifinal. They believe their time is now, and it’s time for them to go and prove it.
What They’re Saying
“I tried to change the style of play, we will go more aggressive, we will try to have control of the ball. I want to be a protagonist team in the league and try to be aggressive in all of the matches now.” — Diego Mejía, head coach
“I think the two teams [2024 and 2025], despite having a lot of familiar faces, will be unrecognizable across the board, in a positive way. We’re going to be a team that dominates with the ball, we’re going to be a team that is the aggressor, a team that dictates play, a team that teams are going to have to really focus on in the week leading up to our game on how they’re going to deal with us. I think it’s a team that’s going to score a lot of goals, have a lot of fun.” — Nathan Ingham, goalkeeper
Projected Starting XI
(4-4-2) Ingham; Grant, Didic, Abatneh, Levis; Antinoro, Castro, Aparicio, Tabla; Salter, Patterson
After a few seasons of Carlos Gonzalez’s more defensive style of football, the expectation is that new boss Diego Mejía is going to bring an attacking flair to Atlético Ottawa in 2025.
That will be welcome news for an attacking unit that includes New Zealand international striker Monty Patterson as well as several returning players like fellow striker Sam Salter, and star winger Ballou Tabla.
In the middle of the park, perennial Player of the Year candidate Manny Aparicio will continue to run the show for Ottawa. Alberto Zapater, Aboubacar Sissoko, and newcomer Juan Castro give Ottawa a midfield with a ton of experience, while the club has also brought in several players on loan from Mexican affiliate club Atlético de San Luis.
At the back, Nathan Ingham will backstop the team for a fourth season in Ottawa, behind a new-look defensive unit. Amer Didic returns, joined by rising star Noah Abatneh, who Ottawa poached from York United. Tyr Walker will also feature regularly at centre-back as Ottawa invest in the future as well as the present. Brett Levis returns to the CPL at left back after starring at Valour FC with a couple of years in the United States in between, while Jonathan Grant finally returns to the pitch after missing his entire first season in Ottawa with a long-term injury suffered in preseason.
This team once again has a lot of depth, which they will need if they are going to reach the heights they think they are capable of.
Roster Notes
Domestic U-21 |
International |
Loaned In |
| Noah Abatneh | Juan Castro | Iker Moreno (Atlético San Luis) |
| Gabriel Antinoro | Kevin Dos Santos | Kevin Ortega (Atlético San Luis) |
| Loïc Cloutier | Iker Moreno | David Rodríguez (Atlético San Luis) |
| Joaquim Coulanges | Kevin Ortega | |
| Monty Patterson | ||
| David Rodríguez | ||
| Alberto Zapater |
