Soccer fans on Vancouver Island will be treated to some holiday Canadian Premier League action this weekend, as Pacific hosts Cavalry at Starlight Stadium on Monday.
Cavalry’s first visit to Starlight Stadium since last October, which saw them claim a 4-1 win, this marks the start of a critical stretch for both teams as they kick off their August slate of games.
Certainly, for the Pacific, the clock is slowly ticking, as they know they don’t have much runway left if they’re to make a push for the playoffs. After the results around the league over the last week, they now sit 12 points behind the fifth and final playoff spot, and have been leapfrogged by Valour in sixth place.
They’ve got a bit of a buffer between themselves and eighth-place Vancouver, who they lead by four points, but their main focus is the race towards the playoffs, instead of a race to avoid the bottom.
If they’re to stay in that race for the playoffs, however, this stretch could be massive for them. Three of their next games are all in B.C., with two home games against Cavalry and the Halifax Wanderers, which sandwich a massive away day in Langley against Vancouver.
After that, Pacific heads out on the road for five of their next six games, with four of those matches coming against teams currently in a playoff spot. Depending on how the next three games go, that later stretch can either buoy or sink their playoff hopes, but they’ll need to start picking up some points, quickly.
“We've been speaking about the push for playoffs, but we just need to take it one game at a time, we need to show up,” Pacific FC’s head coach, James Merriman, said this week. “We need to be consistent in our identity, the way that we want to attack games and the way we want to play.”
“It starts with this game against Cavalry, and once we see this game through, then we'll prepare for the next one, but we can’t look further than that. At this point, we need to be more consistent in our performances.”
As for Cavalry, their focus will be on returning to their early-summer form after hitting a bit of a July slump. Having lost three of their last five CPL matches, while also getting eliminated from the quarter-finals of the Canadian Championship, they’ve hit a bit of a rough patch, one that’s left the 2024 North Star Cup winners in a bit of a frustrated mood.
Now sitting 10 points adrift of first-place Ottawa, their dreams of a CPL Shield push seem distant at the moment. Plus, even more importantly, they sit nine points behind second-place Forge, too, meaning that they might not even get a chance to try and host the CPL Final for a second straight year, either.
Granted, they’ve got a lot of time to change that, but they’ll need to turn their fortunes around quite quickly - perhaps facing a Pacific team they’ve beaten eight times in their last 10 meetings might be what the doctor ordered for them.
“We haven't been good enough in either box, and we've been hurt by that in the past couple of games," Cavalry’s goalkeeper, Marco Carducci, said after Cavalry’s loss to Valour on Tuesday. “That comes down to us, scoring, finishing our chances, and also getting back to clean sheets, blocking shots, saving shots, and preventing opportunities."
In terms of squad availability, Pacific are without Ronan Kratt and Juan Quintana for the rest of the season, while Daniel de Pauli also remains sidelined. As for Cavalry, it’s yet unclear whether Shamit Shome will return in time for this match, while Goteh Ntignee and Ali Musse are both suspended due to red cards, with Ntignee set to serve the first game of a one-match ban, and Musse set to serve the second game of a three-match ban.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
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Pacific looking to re-find home advantage: By the end of this matchday, Pacific is set to become the first CPL team to have played 10 home games, as the schedule has given them a bit of a home-heavier schedule than most so far. Why is that important to note? With there still being 12 games remaining in the regular season schedule, that means that Pacific still has a lot of road games remaining in the back half of the season, with most of them coming in that aforementioned stretch of five road games in a six-match stretch. For a team with the worst road record in the CPL in 2025, sitting as the only side without a win away from home and just two points accumulated from seven road matches, that stretch could sink their season if they don’t take advantage of the two home games they’ve got over the next three matchdays. Having accumulated just 10 points from their first nine home games, two wins would get them to 16 points in 11 matches, which is a lot more reasonable. Because of that, look for them to get the first of those two potential wins on the board in this game, with their big goal being to keep the ball out of their net in doing so - the 16 goals they’ve conceded at home is tied for last in the league. It’s hard to win at home if guests can come in and find goals the way teams have at Starlight Stadium this year, and Pacific knows that, which is why they’re eager to change things.
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Can Cavalry re-ignite attack? After scoring for fun earlier in the campaign, the goals have dried up for Cavalry, who have scored just five goals in their last seven games. For a team that had 18 goals in their first nine games, it’s been a steep drop-off, one they’d love to quickly change. For the most part, their process has been good - they created some excellent chances in their recent back-to-back losses to York United and Valour, but didn’t finish them, which opened the door for their opponents to punish them on the counter-attack (in York’s case) and set-pieces (in Valour’s case). In particular, something to watch is Cavalry’s struggles at breaking down low blocks, which has given a big advantage to teams that open the scoring against them. There’s a reason why Cavalry have a record of 0W-5D-5L (all competitions) when they concede first, as teams have been able to sit back when nabbing a goal, and Pacific will look to follow a similar blueprint - something Cavalry will have to be wary of.
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Will Pacific find a rare Cavalry win? It’s rare to see a team have such a one-sided run of games against another in the CPL, where teams are often quite closely contested, but for whatever reason, Cavalry have had Pacific’s numbers in the last few years. Granted, this matchup has always leaned in Cavalry’s favour, as they have 18 wins to Pacific’s eight in their head-to-head series, but Cavalry have really started to pull away recently. After a 2021 that saw them lose two massive games to Pacific, the quarter-finals of the Canadian Championship and the semi-finals of the CPL playoffs, Cavalry have lost just twice to Pacific since the start of 2022 - a 3-0 defeat to Pacific in CPL action in July of 2022 and a penalty shootout loss in the preliminary round of the Canadian Championship in April of 2023. Otherwise, Cavalry have won 10 of 16 meetings since the start of 2022, doing well to dominate this matchup. For Pacific, however, they shouldn’t feel too down about that stat - just this week, Valour picked up a win against Cavalry despite having similar struggles in recent years, something Pacific would love to replicate. Perhaps that could even be what Pacific needs to reignite their campaign a bit, as a victory can have added meaning if it comes against a team that has had their number the way Cavalry has had Pacific’s over the last few years.
PROJECTED STARTING XIs
Pacific FC: Melvin; Chung, Tugwell, Ndom, Lajeunesse, Mukumbilwa; Bustos, Young, Daniels, Toualy; Díaz
Cavalry FC: Carducci; Aird, Kobza, Montgomery, Gherasimencov; Gutiérrez, Piepgrass; Henry, Camargo, Sellouf; Warschewski
ALL-TIME SERIES
Pacific FC wins: 8 || Cavalry FC wins: 18 || Draws: 6
Last meeting:
June 22, 2025 — Cavalry FC 1-0 Pacific FC
KEY QUOTES
“We need to be more on the front foot in our attitude, with high energy in the way that we defend and the way that we attack. If there are moments where we need to take care of the ball and rest with the ball, we need to recognize those and adapt. Those are all things that we can do a much better job of doing. We weren’t happy with that last game.” – Pacific FC head coach James Merriman
***“*I don’t think it was a bad performance from us, but we were a bit soft defending set plays, and that’s on us, and we’ve got to be better at our finishing (...) we had opportunities to take shots, finish at the back post, that’s on us.” – Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. (from post-game vs. Valour on July 29th)
