It was a triumphant experience for some of their younger players, but the upshot is that Forge FC got the win they needed to clear to launch themselves into the most important week, so far, of the season.
The still-undefeated Hammers got by Vancouver FC 2-1 on a late Saturday afternoon so scorching you could fry an egg on your own forehead. That pulled them to within one point of Atlético Ottawa in the race for first place in the CPL and provided a little tailwind heading into Wednesday night’s second leg of the Canadian Championship quarter-final in Montréal, which Hamilton leads 1-0 after a home win some 53 days earlier.
Saturday’s victory won’t hang in The Louvre but it will hang in the lifetime memory galleries of 20-year-old Forge goalkeeper Dino Bontis and rookie striker Maxime Fillion. Hamilton unleashed a dominant first half—with winger David Choinière demonstrating he’s fully recovered from injury with an aggressive, controlling performance—but led only 1-0 on Matteo Campagna’s own goal on a sloppily comical sequence that was forced by Brian Wright pressure.
Perhaps, as head coach Bobby Smyrniotis suggested afterward, Forge began looking through the remaining 45 minutes and into Wednesday night at Stade Saputo and were sluggish after the break, as the visitors beat them to a majority of balls.
But substitutions that sent in the 22-year-old Fillion, Forge’s second-round choice in the CPL’s December U Sports Draft, 20-year-old forward Amadou Koné, and all-time Forge Tristan Borges injected an immediate shot of adrenalin and emotional vigour. Within a couple of minutes, Borges had deftly and quickly headed Hoce Massunda’s textbook cross from a non-scoring spot directly to the unmarked Fillion who didn’t even look at the net as he legged home his first professional goal. That 2-0 lead held until Vancouver got a late and deserved goal from the always dangerous Vasco Fry three minutes into a long injury time.
“It's quite a feeling,” Fillion said afterward. “Honestly, I've been waiting for it for a long time. Now it's come. I've opened my account with, hopefully, many more to come.”
A lot had to happen on that play, including a nice buildup to the creative Massunda, who’s only 20 himself.
Massunda arced a perfect parabola over and across the box to Borges, standing outside the net on the goal line, and he was perfectly aware of where Fillion was lurking nearby.
“Of course you have to do the first run for Hoce’s cross, so if it lands on you, you’re there,” Fillion said. “Afterwards, you know Borges is not in a spot to score so you have to be ready for any ball that comes. He put it in the right spot…and I was there.”
Fillion had a second chance to score from in tight but got tied up. The former Montréal Carabin acknowledged it was a huge day for U Sports as the 20-year-old Koné was the club’s second-round choice out of Carleton in the December 2023 draft and 20-year-old Bontis, who is Western’s top keeper, has been on a series of developmental and U Sports contracts with Forge since he was a Grade 12 student at Hamilton’s Hillfield Strathallan College.
“Dino had an amazing game,” Fillion said. “He's been here for so long. I'm so happy for him too.”
Although he’s played some pre-season friendlies, this was Bontis’s first professional game and he made a couple of very alert saves, cutting down angles to be in the right place, particularly on a great save against Pathe Ndiaye. He also got help from Rezart Rama, who plucked Henri Godbut’s shot away at the goalline.
Bontis held Vancouver scoreless but after his second leg cramp of the game had to be removed in favour of Chris Kalongo, who got his first action of the season after a long and careful injury-recovery period.
Not only did Bontis earn his first pro start, according to Forge director of soccer operations Jelani Smith, he became the first Hamilton-born player to appear in an official game for Forge FC.
He played for Hamilton Sparta from the ages of five to 10 before moving over to Toronto FC’s Academy then on to Western, where he played with his brother Charlie. He’s also started internationally for Canada’s U-15 and U-20 national teams.
“It feels amazing,” Bontis said after the game. “I’ve been at Forge a few years and I’ve been waiting for this. Obviously, everyone in this country who plays soccer wants to be a pro player and to play in my home city and not concede and help get the win, it just means so much. I’m very happy.
“It feels incredible to be the first Hamilton player for Forge. I come to these games and I see the teachers I had growing up and they say, ‘I’m so happy for you’ and I see the kids at the games that are wearing the different club kits that I used to play against in all the regional competitions. For them to know that I came from here and got the opportunity to play the pro game is really something special.”
Bontis has patterned his style on a hybrid mixture of two European legends; Germany’s Manuel Neuer, who perfected the “sweeper keeper” approach, and Spaniard Iker Casillas, who, like Bontis, is not cut from the standard mould of several inches over six feet.
“I liked him because he was also a shorter goalkeeper, and his save-making and shot-stopping made him one of the best, if not the best, goalkeepers of all time.”
Bontis had been advised before the game by Rama to “just smile, relax and enjoy the experience so I tried to do that… and then he helped me big-time with that clearance.”
Smyrniotis said that while he wasn’t satisfied with Forge’s passive play after the intermission, he was impressed that even playing below par his team still picked up three points for their seventh win to accompany six draws. He called it a “banana peel” game, meaning a good chance for last-place Vancouver to find second-place Forge looking ahead to Wednesday in Montréal and three days later in Ottawa, which they did at times.
The head coach said he did have to spend more time addressing his club prior to the Vancouver game than he’ll have to do on Wednesday because the importance of the mid-week match is so glaringly acute the players won’t need much emotional or tactical motivation.
Vancouver, too, has an important national championship match this week, heading into Calgary on Tuesday for their second quarter-final leg, after a 1-1 draw in May.
CF Montréal, whom the Hammers eliminated in one of the all-time franchise high points last year, sits in last place in the MLS East but looked to be rising from the doldrums with a home win against New York City a week ago. But that was their only win in 11 home games this season.
Saturday, after taking an early 1-0 lead in front of a sold-out Stade Saputo audience, on a goal by Prince Owusu, who was a threat all night, they fell prey to the magic of Lionel Messi, who scored two brilliant goals in Inter Miami’s convincing 4-1 MLS victory.
Forge carries a 1-0 lead into the second leg. Last year they had tied 1-1 in Hamilton but went ahead 2-0 in the return leg at Montréal before a long weather delay, then withstood a revitalized and furious home-team barrage to prevail 2-1 and advance to the national semi-final, where they were narrowly edged by Toronto FC.
“I think what you take from last year is that you’ve gone in there and have dominated a game there, and you’ve won a game there, so it’s not something you have to do for the first time,” says Smyrniotis.
“History always guides you but it’s just part of it, whether it’s positive or negative. We’ve had positive experiences in there and we’ve had negative experiences too.”
The Forge will have to be aware of the lofty striker Owusu, who has scored before against Hamilton, and has eight goals in 21 MLS games. Victor Loturi is among the other dangerous opponents and while Montreal is enduring a dismal season, they do have a payroll several times higher than Forge’s with players who’ve faced high-calibre opposition much of their careers and are unlikely to be as shockingly nonchalant about facing Hamilton as they were in the opening match. The Canadian Championship — and its automatic entry into Concacaf Champions Cup — is their remaining chance this season to redeem themselves, competitively and with their supporters.
“Obviously we know it’s going to be a tough game,” said Forge midfielder/defender Alex Achinioti-Jönsson who celebrated his record-setting 200th game in a CPL kit Saturday with his usual gritty body-sacrificing play.
“It’s been a long time since we last played them. They might be a completely different team now. We had the Vancouver game to focus on first but we know Montréal going to come out with a lot of energy and we know it’s going to be tough playing on their grass field, but we’ve gone there and gotten results before.
“We have to go in and not underestimate them; not be comfortable in our results and not walk into the same trap we walked into last year when we played Toronto when we had a 1-0 lead. We have to put our foot on the gas right away and put our stamp on the game. I think that’s important. So we don’t let them decide what’s going on on the field too much.”
For Choinière, who spent seven years with his brother Mathieu at Montréal’s youth academy when they were named the Impact, and made 15 MLS appearances with CF, this game has deep resonance. He won’t be playing against his brother, who’s left Montréal for the Swiss League, but Mathieu will be in the audience Wednesday.
“Of course, going in there still has meaning,” Choinière says. “That’s where I grew up, that’s where I did all of my youth soccer. I’m always going to be attached to that club, no matter what. My family’s going to be there, my parents, my uncle, my aunt, my brother. And I’m going to see his new baby (Elliot) for the first time. It’s exciting to see them all.”
“Montréal is at home, and it’s a big competition for them because you have a quicker access to a trophy, and Champions Cup, so I think they’ll bring their best selves to this game. But we’re going to bring our best version of ourselves too. So it should be a good game.”
Choinière’s head coach leaves us with this final thought on the cusp of heading into Montréal’s east end:
“We know what it takes to win and we know that if we’re not at our top it’s going to be tough,” Smyrniotis says. “We’re playing a very good team, so I think that’s the biggest thing we take for the guys who were here last year is that confidence. But we know it’s going to be a fight from this moment on; they’re struggling in MLS competition and this is the only way to a trophy this year for them.
“So we’re going to get the best of them… and they’re going to get the best of us.”