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The 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup gets underway in February, and three Canadian teams will be going toe-to-toe with some of the top clubs in the region. CanPL.ca will be covering the tournament extensively, with in-depth guides on the CPL teams and their opponents, plus more on the whole tournament. For more of CanPL.ca’s coverage of the Concacaf Champions Cup, click here.

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Forge FC

Location (league): Hamilton, Ont., Canada (Canadian Premier League)
Date founded: 2017
Appearances in CCC: 2
Best finish: Round of 16 (2022)
First opponent: CF Monterrey

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History

For a club just starting its seventh season of existence, the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup will already be Forge’s third appearance. This is the sixth time they have played in a continental tournament, including Concacaf League action.

They have earned these opportunities through domestic dominance. Forge are four-time CPL Champions, playing in each of the league’s six finals since its inception. This past year, they added a CPL Shield to their trophy cabinet as the league’s regular season winners. They are also the only Canadian Premier League side to have appeared in a Canadian Championship final, losing on penalties to Toronto FC in the 2020 Final.

Founded on May 6, 2017, Forge considers itself a ‘big club’ within the region, and have the results to back it up. Just this past year they defeated Major League Soccer’s CF Montréal over two legs in the Canadian Championship before losing to Toronto FC on away goals in the semi-final, despite beating TFC 2-1 in the first leg in Hamilton.

Having reached the semi-finals of the 2021 Concacaf League, losing to Honduran club Motagua on away goals, Forge are still searching for their first victory in the Concacaf Champions Cup. They lost to Cruz Azul 4-1 on aggregate in their tournament debut in 2022, before falling to fellow LigaMX giant Chivas Guadalajara 5-2 last year. Perhaps their biggest test yet awaits in the opening round of the 2025 edition against CF Monterrey, but they will now be equipped with plenty of experience.

How they qualified

In any given league campaign, one of the biggest priorities for Forge is to qualify for this competition — by whatever pathway possible. This past year, they accomplished this goal by winning the Canadian Premier League regular season, finishing two points ahead of rivals Cavalry in the table. Cavalry will also participate in the 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup.

The coach

Despite constantly being linked to high-profile jobs, including taking the Canadian men’s national team, given his success with Forge, Smyrniotis enters his seventh season as the Hamilton club’s head coach.

The 45-year-old from Scarborough, Ont. has been on the job since day one for Hamilton club, and is a four-time Canadian Premier League champion, coaching the team in all six finals in the CPL’s history. His club are also coming off a season where they won the CPL Shield as regular season champions.

After being nominated for the league’s Coach of the Year award in each of its first five seasons, Smyrniotis finally received the honour this past campaign.

One victory that the Forge coach would surely love to achieve is a first in the Concacaf Champions Cup. He has long spoken of how much this competition means to him, as a chance for his young club to prove themselves within the region.

3 Key Players

Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson: 

No player has made more appearances for a Canadian Premier League club in the league’s history than the Swede has for Forge. Since playing in the CPL’s inaugural match, he has made 185 appearances for the Hamilton club in all competitions.

After spending the first three seasons with Forge as a defensive midfielder, the 28-year-old was converted to a centre-back in 2022. He won the league’s Defender of the Year award that campaign, and was nominated for it once again this past season.

Kyle Bekker:

The Forge captain is back for his seventh season with the club after signing a multi-year deal and remains one of its central figures. At age 34, he was again nominated for the league’s Player of the Year award in 2024 following a campaign in which he scored twice and had six assists.

Bekker is a technically outstanding midfielder capable of picking out a pass or playing a cross anywhere on the pitch. Before joining the Hamilton club, Bekker played in Major League Soccer with CF Montréal, FC Dallas and Toronto FC, also making 18 appearances for the Canadian men’s national team.

Tristan Borges: 

Borges won his second Canadian Premier League Player of the Year award this past year after a standout campaign, during which he scored eight goals and added six assists. He has been one of the Canadian Premier League’s most exciting players since its inception, providing many iconic moments including his match-winning Olimpico in extra time of the 2023 CPL Final.

For all his success domestically, Borges has scored just once in Concacaf competition. He will want to change that during the 2025 tournament.

Recent form

For a club that usually peaks at the business end of the season, Forge failed to put a bow on an outstanding 2024 campaign, losing to rivals Cavalry 2-1 in the 2024 Canadian Premier League final. That loss came after finishing the season with four losses in their final five matches, two of which came against the Cavs in the post-season.

That should take nothing away from what Forge were able to accomplish in the previous months of the campaign, however. The Hamilton club showed a consistency of performance they perhaps hadn’t in past years during the regular season, finishing at the top of the table and winning the league’s CPL Shield with a 15-5-8 record. They also made an impressive run in the Canadian Championship, beating an MLS opponent for the first time when they defeated CF Montréal in the quarter-final 3-2 on aggregate. They also won the first leg against Toronto FC in the semi-final, before bowing out 2-2 on away goals.

Forge are anticipating more turnover than usual this off-season, but they have already secured the return of several key players including captain Kyle Bekker and 2024 CPL Player of the Year Tristan Borges. They also added the league’s Players’ Player of the Year Brian Wright from rivals York United to help give their attack a focal point once again.

The club has confirmed the departure of CPL Player of the Year nominated midfielder Alessandro Hojabrpour and the Canadian Premier League’s all-time leading goalscorer, Terran Campbell, while starting central defender and Haiti international Garven Metusala left the club for the Colorado Switchbacks of the USL Championship. As a result, other players will need to step up to fill these key positions for Forge this year.

Tournament outlook

It doesn’t get much tougher for Forge FC than their first-round matchup against Mexican giants CF Monterrey. This challenge won’t be too foreign for Forge, however, who faced Cruz Azul and Chivas Guadalajara, respectively, in their previous two appearances in the Concacaf Champions Cup.

After perhaps prioritizing trying to play their possession and attack-heavy style of football in those past tournaments, Forge have made it clear that getting a historic result is very much the central mission in 2025. It certainly won’t be easy, but they are a club steeped in winning in just about every competition in which they have participated.

If they can somehow pull that off, Forge would meet the winner of Costa Rican club Saprissa and the reigning Canadian Champions, the Vancouver Whitecaps. Forge and the Whitecaps have never met, so Concacaf Champions Cup action would be a heck of a way to play out that first clash.

First round schedule

Leg 1: Wednesday, Feb. 5

Forge FC vs. CF Monterrey — Tim Hortons Field, Hamilton, Ont.
8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT

Leg 2: Tuesday, Feb. 11

CF Monterrey vs. Forge FC — Estadio BBVA, Guadalupe, Mexico
8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT