Will Cavalry FC REPEAT as Canadian Premier League champions 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 OneSoccer and 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.
A traditional CPL powerhouse, Cavalry FC are the reigning champions from 2024. The club from Calgary, Alta. has never finished a regular season lower than third place, finishing atop the table in two of the CPL's five full-length campaigns.
Led by coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. since day one, Cavalry's squad features a star-studded cast of both CPL veterans and more recent additions. For them, the bar is -- as always -- set at the very top.
The Cavs enter 2025 brimming with confidence, having tested themselves on the continental stage already in a hard-fought Concacaf Champions Cup tie against Pumas UNAM -- where they won the home leg, the first CPL side ever to do so against a Mexican team. Now, the challenge will be to retain their North Star Cup title, and perhaps add even more silverware to the cabinet at Spruce Meadows...
Story of 2024
- 2024 CPL regular season record (W-D-L): 12-12-4 (48 pts, 2nd place)
- Goals scored: 39
- Goals against: 27
- Goal difference: +12
- Top scorer: Tobias Warschewski (12)
- Canadian Championship: Lost in the quarter-finals to the Vancouver Whitecaps
The real story of Cavalry's 2024 is how it ended. For the first time in club history, they went into the off-season as champions, having finally won the CPL Final in their third attempt -- all three of them against rivals Forge FC. An outstanding performance in front of a sold-out ATCO Field was enough for Cavalry to beat the 2024 regular season title winners and lift the North Star Cup on home soil, sending them into the break with smiles on their faces.
Cavalry arguably got out to a slow start in 2024, with just three wins in their first 15 games, and they didn't break into the playoff picture for good until Week 16 of the season. However, even during a frustrating period they were tough to beat, with nine of those first 15 matches ending in draws. After winning the regular season in a remarkably consistent 2023, last year Cavalry instead picked up momentum in the latter half of 2024 and pretty much never stopped. They lost just one of their last 16 games, winning five in a row to end the campaign and beating Forge in back-to-back playoff meetings to win the Cup.
The upward surge in the fall was headlined by an outrageous run of form from Tobias Warschewski, who scored five goals in the last three regular season games to steal the Golden Boot, and then went on to score in both playoff matches to lead Cavalry to glory.
Arrivals and Departures
Players in: |
Players out: |
| DF - Mihail Gherasimencov (on loan) | DF - Daan Klomp |
| FW - Caniggia Elva | FW - William Akio |
| FW - Malcolm Shaw | |
| FW - Lowell Wright | |
| MF - Charlie Trafford |
The main story in Calgary is just how many players from the title-winning squad they've managed to retain. Ten of the 11 starters from the 2024 CPL Final are back for 2025, and seven from the 2023 Final. This is a group that, by now, knows Tommy Wheeldon Jr.'s tactical fundamentals inside and out, which allows them to build in more nuance to their style and identity.
One name does stand out among the departures, though: Daan Klomp. The back-to-back CPL Defender of the Year departed this winter for Belgian side La Louvière, which leaves a massive hole in Cavalry's backline. Wheeldon Jr. will look to some of his returning players, particularly Eryk Kobza, to try and fill that void.
In midfield, the Cavs will also be without a stalwart of recent years in Charlie Trafford, who announced his retirement on Tuesday.
There aren't a lot of new faces in the group this season; Caniggia Elva is the most notable addition, returning to Canada after nine seasons in Germany. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Mihail Gherasimencov joins on loan from the Vancouver Whitecaps.
2025 Outlook
Over the past couple of years, Tommy Wheeldon Jr. has explained several times that the CPL's two trophies offer two very different challenges and experiences. Winning the regular season and the CPL Shield, he says, is much harder to do, but winning the North Star Cup as playoff champion is more fun.
He would know, as Cavalry won those two trophies in that order in 2023 and 2024. Their 2023 campaign was a marvel of consistency, while the 2024 playoff triumph was a textbook demonstration of hitting a peak at the right time.
No CPL team has ever won both in the same year, as Wheeldon Jr. has pointed out in recent interviews; could that mean that Cavalry's ambition for 2025 is to win the first double?
Cavalry definitely have the talent to make a run at it, especially with so much of last year's team returning. Expect them to continue to be a powerhouse in the CPL this season. They'll be most successful if Tobias Warschewski can keep up his excellent form from late last season (and from the Concacaf Champions Cup), as well as if a centre-back group featuring Eryk Kobza and Callum Montgomery can keep things tight at the back in the absence of Daan Klomp.
Also, it might be flying under the radar, but the Cavs have nine U-21-eligible players at the moment, so they could have a more youthful flair this year.
What They’re Saying
"We can use what we have from last year as a base, then add tactical nuances. What I've learned is every year, every team and every coach adds something different, and the league is better." -- Tommy Wheeldon Jr., head coach
"Once you pick up some silverware it becomes addictive. You love the feeling of it; the moment is a moment, but it's captured in pictures. ... It's more difficult to go from corner to corner of this big country and play everybody four times, I'll always stand by that. Both are big trophies to lift, and worthy trophies to win, but no club has won both." -- Tommy Wheeldon Jr., head coach
Projected Starting XI
(4-2-3-1) Carducci; Aird, Kobza, Montgomery, Kamdem; Gutiérrez, Shome; Musse, Camargo, Herdman; Warschewski
It would be a shock if Cavalry's opening day starting XI (bar any injuries) is not almost identical to the one that started the CPL Final. The only change is Kobza coming in for Klomp.
That left wing spot is probably Jay Herdman's to lose after he did well for the Cavs on loan from Vancouver Whitecaps last fall. He's a young player going into his first full year on a permanent deal with Cavalry, though, so he'll have to fight hard to keep his spot -- especially with the likes of Caniggia Elva hoping to break into the XI.
Roster Notes
Domestic U-21 |
International |
Loaned In |
| Josh Belbin (Development) | Jesse Daley | Mihail Gherasimencov (Whitecaps FC 2) |
| Neven Fewster (Development) | Tom Field | |
| Mihail Gherasimencov | Nicolas Wähling | |
| Michael Harms | Tobias Warschewski | |
| Maël Henry | ||
| Jay Herdman | ||
| Joseph Holliday | ||
| James McGlinchey (Development) | ||
| Niko Myroniuk |
