"You have to think big": Forge's Canadian Championship win vs CF Montréal a sign of what's to come for club, CPL
Ever since their club’s inception, Forge have always been willing to dream big.
Because of that, they weren’t daunted by the challenge of travelling to Montréal’s Stade Saputo for leg two of their Canadian Championship quarter-final tie this week.
Tied at 1-1 on aggregate, but trailing on away goals, they knew they’d need a special performance to emerge victorious, requiring at least one goal to have a chance at winning.
Given that they’d failed to score in two previous visits to Stade Saputo, losing by a combined score of 5-0, it was a daunting task, but they remained optimistic.
Instead of thinking about the past, they set their eyes on the future and focused on what they needed to do, knowing that scoring one goal would at least give them a good shot at penalties, and that two goals could be enough to win the tie.
Sure enough, their performance matched that mentality. Quickly, Forge asserted themselves in the match, keeping over 60% of possession through the first 15 minutes, as they made Montréal work without the ball.
With that, they were able to fashion an opening in the 14th minute. After a perfect switch of play from Malcolm Duncan to Béni Badibanga, Badibanga found Daniel Parra with a pass into the box, and then Parra did the rest from there, controlling the ball and striking it past Montréal’s Sebastian Breza to get that first goal.
GOAL⚒️@ForgeFCHamilton have opened the scoring in leg 2 of their #CanChamp QF tie vs #CFMTL, as Daniel Parra powers one past Sebastian Breza to give his team a 2-1 aggregate lead over MTL
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) May 22, 2024
🔴Watch TELUS #CanChamp on OneSoccer pic.twitter.com/kzy91EwDwp
Then, they weren’t done there, either, as Duncan played a perfect ball over the top in the 24th minute, finding the run of Kwasi Poku, who was deployed as an emergency striker due to injuries and his profile. Asked to run in behind Montréal’s backline to expose their aggressive defensive set-up, he executed that perfectly on that play, giving him a breakaway he finished with ease to make it 2-0.
GOAL⚒️⚒️@ForgeFCHamilton are flying in Montréal🪽
— OneSoccer (@onesoccer) May 23, 2024
Kwasi Poku has made it 2-0 in leg 2 of Forge's #CanChamp QF tie vs #CFMTL, putting them up 3-1 on aggregate
CFMTL now needs at least 3 goals to win this tie👀
🔴Watch TELUS #CanChamp on OneSoccer pic.twitter.com/VAnj4A3lD3
From there, Forge were in dreamland. With their opening goal, Montréal could still get the game to penalties with one more goal and could’ve won the tie with two more, but with Forge’s second goal, Montréal needed three goals to win or else Forge would emerge victorious.
As a result, they were able to see out the result from there. They were made to sweat for it, as a two-hour weather delay sapped their first-half momentum, leading to a furious second-half Montréal push that saw them score in the 66th minute before coming close to finding the two further goals they needed, but Forge made sure that first goal would be all they could muster up on the evening.
Thanks to that, they were able to make history, becoming the third CPL side to eliminate an MLS side from the competition.
Not only that, but they were full value for the result, too. Forge didn’t just hang on for 180 minutes and get lucky - they imposed themselves on large chunks of the tie, stuck to their identity as a team, and were very clinical in both boxes, allowing them to earn every bit of their 3-2 aggregate win.
“That just shows that we're never going to change the way we play, no matter our opponent,” Forge centre back, Garven Metusala, said of his team’s performance. “Even if we play against a side that is supposed to be better, we're not going to change the way we play, we are going to stick to our identity and show them that even if we're in the CPL, we know we can play.”
“I thought we were very good,” Forge’s head coach, Bobby Smyrniotis, added. “We were very positive in the way we started. We tried to keep our tempo, play our football and tried to expose some spaces that we looked at before the match.”
“I think we did a good job in the first game in Hamilton. Still, we had to make sure to increase the frequency of doing the things that worked, because this game is about numbers, so unless you like to play with chance and luck, and they're not my friends, we like to do things by design, instead.”
“So today, we started a certain way, and if we look at (our start), especially the second goal, which was Kwasi Poku getting into a certain area, those are things we worked on and we looked at, finding those isolations with Montreal centre backs in 1v1 situations with a lot of space in behind, and he did it well. We’ve put Kwasi Poku in a position where he hasn't played a lot, but his qualities helped him there, and he's been rewarded with a goal and it's a goal that gets us through to the next round.” 
Yet, it’s not just a good result for Forge, but for the CPL at large. Especially after what transpired 24 hours earlier, when Cavalry FC took on the two-time defending Canadian Championship winners Vancouver Whitecaps in leg 2 of their tie, beating them 1-0 to only fall 2-2 on away goals, both matches were a good reflection of what the league can do.
To see two of its most successful and storied clubs beating solid MLS sides is massive for a league only in its sixth year, showing the work they’ve done up to this point.
For example, look at a Cavalry side that now has a record of 2W-2D-1L against the Whitecaps in five meetings, showing that this most recent win isn’t their first rodeo in these sorts of games, as they’ve now built up a level of familiarity with those sort of tough matchups.
Cavalry FC defeats Vancouver Whitecaps 1-0 in this 2024 TELUS #CanChamp quarter-finals Leg 2, but it's not enough to overcome away goals as the Whitecaps advance to the semi-finals 2-2 on aggregate 👀 pic.twitter.com/GFn7xp0g0q
— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) May 22, 2024
Therefore, while they won’t be joining Forge in the next round, they’ll look back at their latest exploit with pride despite the result, knowing they’ve proven their ability to step up for these sorts of games.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Cavalry head coach, Tommy Wheeldon Jr, said when asked if he felt pride in the result after the match. “We are playing against a different type of MLS side, and the Whitecaps play good football, they’re organized, very tough to break down, but we had some terrific moments.”
“I think right now what I'm feeling is pride. The disappointment will come through when I watch the game again, seeing how close it could have been, we just needed one more goal, but the reality is that we've only been separated by a worldie from Levonte Johnson in the first leg, so do that over two legs against a very good side shows the capability of the club that we've got.”
And that’s the key message that CPL sides will look to push forward from this game - that they’re a competitive circuit, one that should be underestimated at their opponents' risk, sitting filled with players who can play at higher levels, as those who have made the jump such as Joel Waterman, Mo Farsi and Lukas MacNaughton have proved.
My 2 biggest takeaways from Forge beating #CFMTL and CS Saint-Laurent beating Halifax is:
— Alexandre Gangué-Ruzic (@AlexGangueRuzic) May 23, 2024
A) There are League 1 Canada players/staff who deserve shots in #CanPL, and CPL players/staff who deserve shots in MLS
B) Underestimating those levels comes at a risk. Talent is there
Wins like Forge’s over Montréal or Cavalry’s over Vancouver further reinforce that point, as both MLS sides rotated decently heading into the match, leaving some of their key pieces out of the lineup, and they were made to pay for it.
For a league in just its sixth year, that’s the message they want to push forward, which is why someone like Pacific’s head coach, James Merriman, who was an assistant coach when Pacific eliminated the Whitecaps from the Canadian Championship in the preliminary round of the 2021 tournament, was quite pleased to see some of his rivals achieve what they did this week.
Ultimately, these sorts of successes can only help all of the teams, given how competitive the circuit has become, something that isn’t lost on Merriman.
“We have quality in our teams, the league is going to continue to grow,” Merriman said this week. “It's only our sixth season, it's only going to improve and it's only going to get better, so it shows where we're at in a short amount of time.”
I’m surprised by the narrative by @MLS Canada clubs when losing to @CPLsoccer clubs in the @telus #CanChamp. Words like “shameful” and “I’m ashamed” make no sense to me. Like MLS, we are a FIFA D1 league. Yes, we are a lot younger, but produce a good standard. No shame in that.
— Mark Noonan (@CPLCommish) May 23, 2024
But while the CPL will look back on this week with pride, Forge must now look forward.
Having achieved a cupset for the ages, they’ll now have to get set for the semi-finals, which will be played across two legs in July and August.
They’ll find out their opponent next week when Canada Soccer re-draws them, the Vancouver Whitecaps, Toronto FC and the winner of Pacific FC and Atlético Ottawa into two new matchups, and they’ll welcome whatever challenge ends up emerging for them there.
From there, they’ll continue to chase after their big goal - to win this tournament. Of course, they knew getting past Montréal was massive for that, especially after having been eliminated by them in three straight tournaments, but now that they’ve got that monkey off their back, they’ve got their eyes on more.
Another look at our win over @cfmontreal
— Forge FC (@ForgeFCHamilton) May 24, 2024
Bring on the TELUS Canadian Championship Semi-Final 🍁#TogetherWeForge #CanChamp pic.twitter.com/mxPyn1Mnxj
So while it’ll be tough for them to build on this result, if there’s a club that one can imagine has the mentality to do so, it’s Forge, who have won four North Star Cups, one CPL regular season title and is littered with experience in Concacaf and this tournament.
Because of that, they’ll hope this is just the start of what’s to come for them over the next few months, showing that their ambitions of winning this tournament aren’t just a far-fetched dream to chase after haphazardly.
“We knew that it was always going to be a challenge,” Smyrniotis said. “A few of our (Canadian Championship) games have gotten away from us in the past, especially here, so it's great to get this result. But for us, most importantly, we're a club that always tries to create some tradition, we're a club that's only six years old, but we think big all the time as a club.”
“One thing that we don't have is this (Canadian Championship) trophy, so that's how we look at it, and it's a tough road to get there. We know what happens, what you need to go through each round, and our next round becomes even tougher, but you have to think big, and if you think big, your players think big, and we can get good results like we did over these two games.”
“This wasn't one game, it was two games, our team played good football in Hamilton and here so now we move on.”
