The lone Canadian Premier League match on Saturday night features second-place Atlético Ottawa welcoming third-place Cavalry FC to the capital.
The hosts will be looking to get back into the win column after losing 2-0 to Forge FC in last weekend's top-of-the table matchup in Hamilton. That defeat came after a 3-1 win a few days earlier in the Canadian Championship, in their semi-final first leg away to Vancouver FC. Ottleti return home for the first time since a 0-0 draw against York United on August 3, beating Valour FC on the road a week later before the recent two-game slide.
Last weekend Cavalry snapped a winless streak of their own, but theirs was twice as long at four matches before they beat the Eagles 5-4 in one of the most memorable matches in CPL history. Tobias Warschewski broke a long personal scoring slump and Michael Baldisimo scored his first for the club, but how the game ended is how people will remember that game for years to come.
Daan Klomp, who only returned to the club days prior, came off the bench and headed the ball home on one of the final plays of the game, seven minutes into stoppage time and two minutes after Emrick Fotsing thought he had snatched a big point on the road for Vancouver with a header into the other net.
It was chaos, and Cavalry will need to clean things up defensively if they are to survive this tough test against a high-scoring Ottawa team, but an emotional win like that could be just what the doctor ordered for them ahead of the final push toward the playoffs.
With Ottawa sitting second in the table, ten points up on their third-place guests, the result of this game could be pivotal. A win for Ottawa, and their spot in the top two can be penciled in, up 13 points. A loss and that gap is reduced to seven points with eight games left in the regular season. If Forge pick up points on Friday night against Vancouver FC, Diego Mejia's squad winning becomes even more important so the gap in the CPL Shield race doesn't increase from the four-point gap it sits at prior to matchweek 20.
Saturday's match will be the third meeting of the season between these sides, and Cavalry's first of two trips to the capital. On April 26 in Calgary, Ottawa scored three goals in the second half in an eventual 3-1 victory, with Caniggia Elva finding a late consolation goal for the hosts. Kevin Dos Santos scored nine minutes into Ottawa's second trip to Alberta on June 28, and Sam Salter scored just after the hour mark to put the bow on a 2-0 win.
Despite their troubles at home against Ottawa over the years, the Cavs have had some success at TD Place. They have two wins and a draw in their last three matches in Ottawa, including a famous 2-1 win in September 2023 in which William Akio scored deep into stoppage time and Tommy Wheeldon Jr held his hand to his ear in front of the Ottawa fans.
Ottawa is expected to everyone available for selection according to head coach Diego Mejia, including defender Loïc Cloutier, who missed last weekend's match in Hamilton. Shamit Shome misses out for Cavalry with a knee injury and there no timetable for his return, as is also the case for Maël Henry's hamstring injury, according to Tommy Wheeldon Jr.
After last weekend's heroics off the bench, the team is still determining if Daan Klomp is ready to ramp up his minutes to start and potentially play 90 minutes, but he will be available again in some form after re-joining the club last weekend after not playing for a while since leaving his club in Belgium.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
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Can Ottawa bounce back from two defeats in a week?: For the first time under head coach Diego Mejia, Atlético Ottawa has lost two matches in a row. The first was a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Vancouver FC in the first leg of their Canadian Championship semi-final last Wednesday, followed by a 2-0 loss to Forge FC in a top-of-the-table league clash. Their only other loss this season came in Halifax at the end of May, and they responded to that defeat with a draw against Vancouver, so Saturday's match provides them with an important task that they could not do in Hamilton -- bouncing back from a loss with a win. They will need to get through a Cavalry side that did win last weekend, and has not lost in their last three trips to the capital.
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How much momentum does Cavalry take from chaotic 5-4 win?: After snapping a four-game winless slide in the most dramatic way possible -- a 97th-minute goal in a scrappy 5-4 win at ATCO Field -- Tommy Wheeldon Jr's Cavalry FC will be keen on turning that victory into some momentum in this final stretch of the season. The Cavs weren't just failing to win those matches, they were also failing to score, and Tobias Warschewski had not scored since May. The five-goal explosion, featuring one from their German talisman, will hopefully spark a complete turnaround in form as they look to end the season strong and defend their North Star Cup. Wheeldon Jr mentioned the shackles being off in his pregame press conference, and their goal now is to keep the attack hot while certainly trying to concede fewer goals against an Ottawa team that scores for fun.
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Gap between second and third at stake: Saturday's match might be Cavalry's best opportunity to close in on Ottawa if they're going to catch up and finish inside the top two this season. The Cavs sit in third place on 29 points after matchweek 19, ten points back of Ottawa's 39 points in second place. Forge FC enters matchweek 20 four points clear of Ottawa, a lead they can extend on Friday night away to Vancouver FC to really put the pressure on. A win to close the gap to seven points is obviously what Cavalry is aiming for, and while keeping that gap at 10 or it growing to 13 isn't the end of their top-two hopes, the liklihood of it happening would certainly drop with just eight games to follow. Ottawa's chances at winning the CPL Shield will also take another hit should Forge win and they lose or draw, so three points are a must for them as well.
PROJECTED STARTING XIs
Atlético Ottawa: Ingham; Cloutier, Abatneh, Kozlovskiy; Antinoro, Castro, Aparicio, Dos Santos; Rodriguez, Salter, Tabla
Cavalry FC: Carducci; Aird, Klomp, Montgomery, Kamdem; Gutierrez, Baldisimo; Musse, Camargo, Ntignee; Warschewski
ALL-TIME SERIES
Atlético Ottawa wins: 10 || Cavalry FC wins: 4 || Draws: 4
Last meeting:
June 28, 2025 — Cavalry FC 0-2 Atlético Ottawa
KEY QUOTES
"We respect Cavalry, because Cavalry finally is the champion of this league, and they have really good players, they have a really good coach, and they have history. We need a lot of energy, a lot of respect for our rival, and we need to play in our way to try to beat them." – Atlético Ottawa head coach Diego Mejia
"We enjoy going towards a great set of fans that are very passionate about their team, an excellent team. Diego has done a great job. They're a confident group, young group, and it's very refreshing to see the way they want to play and trust in their process. They're not going to change, they just believe in the way they want to play the game and they've had success to this point so far. Yeah, they've had back to back losses, but I'm sure they'll be wanting to put that right, but that makes for an even better match for us coming off the back of our win." – Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr
