Forge FC has played in nearly two dozen official international matches, and Tristan Borges has been in the lineup for all but four of them. The only two-time winner of the Canadian Premier League’s Player of the Year, is well-equipped to speak to the importance of hothouse training in a warm-weather environment.
And he says the value of The Hammers’ second consecutive preseason training camp in Cancún, Mexico should never be underestimated. They’ve gone from last week’s sub-zero, snowy conditions to arriving on the Mayan Riviera on Saturday, where they can work out in short sleeves, get up to a sweat in a hurry, and have two practices per day.
It’s the same kind of abrupt environmental switch they’ll have to make in their two-game Champions Cup series with Mexican superpower Los Tigres UANL, whom they’ll face at Hamilton Stadium on Tuesday, Feb. 3, and then a week later on the university campus at Monterrey, Mexico, in the opening round of the Concacaf Champions Cup. It’s the fourth time in five years that Forge has qualified for the Cup and the second straight January they’ve met a legendary side from the Monterrey area. Although they’ve yet to win a game in three previous trips to Cup play they’re learning more and more each time and getting stronger at handling the demands of the biggest club team stage on this continent, which include a short off-season and, more impactfully, facing a high-quality opponent that will have already played four regular-season games in 2026 by the time they venture to Canada to face Forge.
“I think, whether people know it or not or whether people want to admit it or not, at the end of the day, I think it is a big advantage for us,” Borges says of the quick turnaround from training at Redeemer University and (two days last weekend) outdoors at Hamilton Stadium to the warmth at Cancún. “I think it’s important in just being able to adapt to different weather climates or just anything in general. I think we've been able to, over the years, be in so many different situations, whether it's types of fields, whether it's types of conditions when it comes to the weather or anything like that, even some of the delays that we've had in the past with game times and other factors.
“So I think we've been kind of battle-tested, as some people would say, and we've been in a lot of different scenarios. We've been able to play in very, very cold weather to the point where the field is basically icy and also in pristine conditions. I think it's an advantage for us being—obviously—from Canada and growing up here and just playing in the weather all the time, every single year at some point. I think that really helps you get a little bit more immune to it as you get older.”
In Champions Cup, teams from Mexico’s Liga MX and other leagues that play into December and conclude with a first-half (Apertura) post-season, then start the second half (Clausura) schedule in January, have always had a perceived competitive edge over teams from MLS and the CPL, both of which do not start their regular season until weeks later. Los Tigres lost 9-8 in penalty kicks to Toluca after overtime in December’s title game. MLS, however, will swing to a schedule similar to Liga MX’s in 2027.
The Tigres have already played three official games and will have a fourth later this week. They beat San Luis 2-1 in the Clausura opener on the road, then lost at home to Pumas but outplayed their visitors heavily, and on Saturday night tied Toluca 0-0 in a title rematch in which a late Tigres goal was overturned by the officials.
“It's a little bittersweet in terms of how much time we kind of have to prepare for it and to get our feet going and then to be in mid-season form,” Borges says. “But at the end of the day, it is what it is. We're already accustomed as a group to it. And it's another challenge for us that I know the guys are ready for.
“Yes, it's tough jumping into things pretty quickly and trying to get the standard pretty high right away. We know that whichever team we were going to get was going to be top quality.
“So obviously it’s a little bit of an uphill battle. But, if we're speaking honestly and truthfully here, I have zero complaints about it at all. I mean, you can't really complain about something like that when all year you're working to achieve the goal of playing in Champions Cup, right?”
When the history of the CPL’s formative years is written, Borges will be prominently featured. The Toronto native, who played for Toronto FC’s third team, then spent the better part of three years in the youth academy and U-21 program for Heerenveen in the Netherlands, bet on himself in 2018 by returning to Canada to play semi-pro for head coach Bobby Smyrniotis at Sigma FC. He had heard the new CPL would be starting the next season, and he earned a spot on the original Forge of 2019.
He went on to become the league’s first U-21 Player of the Year and overall Player of the Year, winning the inaugural Golden Boot with 13 goals and tying for the CPL lead with five assists. That resulted in an unanticipated turning point for the new loop as he was sold to Belgian Division B side OH Leuven for a massive transfer fee that quickly elevated the soccer universe’s opinion of the CPL, and of Forge.
He returned after one year in Belgium, first on loan and then permanently, and has been a club mainstay with his timely goals—including the famous Olimpico in overtime of the 2023 title game against Cavalry, which gave Forge its fourth league championship in five years—and in 2024 he was named the CPL’s Player of the Year for a second time, with 0.74 goal contributions per 90 minutes, highest in the league. He also created the third-most scoring chances.
While Smyrniotis shifts him around, he’ll likely start on the right flank, where he’ll often face aggressive Tigres left centre back Juan Sanchez, who has taken a yellow card in all three official matches this January and was removed for a second yellow card for the final few minutes in the scoreless draw with Toluca on Saturday.
“We’re just studying them now,” Borges says Monday. “Realistically, almost anybody that you face in this competition is going to be top-tier competition. Anybody who watches these top teams play can see the quality is very high. And the pace is very, very fast.
“It's going to be a tough matchup. But very much expected as we've already played most of the other Mexican giants.”
Forge will be, yet again, underdogs in this game, but Borges says their past experience in international home-and-home series, no matter the results—and having more 2026 game tape on Los Tigres than the Mexican side has on them—can be helpful.
“We always have enough quality on our team and we always have a game plan set up for us,” he says. “I think we've been able to have good games in the Cup. Yeah, the results haven't really gone our way and the way we want to, but at the end of the day you just look at Tigres and think of the quality we've been able to produce in games against other top teams.
“I've said this before: I think it's really, really good for us to be having that first game at home to kind of get a little bit of the nerves out and everybody to get that feeling that when you step on the field, anything can happen.”