Everybody on the current official roster is older than he is, but Zayne Bruno doesn’t pay much attention to that.
“Yeah, I’m young, but you can only be young for so long,” the 19-year-old Forge midfielder says bluntly.
As the Hammers press down a little harder every day as they approach their April 4 CPL home and season opener against reigning champion Atlético Ottawa, Bruno is fully aware that 2026 can be absolutely pivotal to his soccer career.
“I think it’s going to be a big year for me,” he says. “Hopefully it’s going to be the year I can break in and establish myself as a first-team player. That’s definitely a goal I have. I want to establish myself, get a lot of minutes and help the team win this year, and also go back to Team Canada to help us qualify for the U-20 World Cup.”
The rangy Brampton native is in his second year with Forge, training with them all through 2025 and dressing for about a dozen games, but he got onto the pitch only four times. To keep his in-game skills sharp he played semipro regularly in League1 Ontario for Hamilton’s top affiliate at Sigma FC.
Loaded with potential, Bruno was signed to an Exceptional Young Talent contract with Forge last spring and actually was a starter on opening day 2025, playing right back against Cavalry FC in the absence of injured Rezart Rama. He showed remarkable poise, an appetite for head-to-head challenges and was among the best players on the pitch for either side when he incurred a questionable second yellow card in the 72nd minute. The red card that accompanies a second yellow kept him out of the next game and Kadhim Kane stepped in, played well and earned himself a couple of more starts before Rezart returned.
“He’s playing behind some really good veteran players on this team but if you look at his first game, it was excellent and maybe if he doesn’t get the red card he plays in the second game, and the third game,” said head coach Bobby Smyrniotis. “Then Kadhim took advantage of his chance, then Rama came back and he was the starter. That’s how it works.
“Zayne has been working hard in the off-season and we expect him to be ready when he’s called on.”
Playing right back in the 2025 opener demonstrated that Bruno has the kind of versatility Forge seeks on its game roster. In Saturday’s friendly match against Ontario Premier League champions Woodbridge Strikers he started at left midfielder and during the first half, Smyrniotis spent more vocal energy directing encouragement, positioning instructions and confirmation at him than at any other player.
“It’s just training and learning every day from the coach, gaining his trust and understanding new roles, what he wants from me and knowing there’s a lot of expectations on me from him,” Bruno says. “Just understanding that he believes in me; and I want to do everything I can to showcase myself and prove to him that I can be a first-team player.
“Playing right back and playing midfield are different but I grew up as a midfielder. Understanding the tactics from Coach Bobby is going to come with time and those are things I will improve on. I also want to physically grow into my body. There are things I can improve on and those are the things the staff will be helping me with.”
Bruno is a homegrown player in the fullest Forge sense. He was four or five years old when he started playing and developed through Sigma FC’s academy and youth teams. His father is a big soccer fan and helped coach a men’s team in Scarborough, and his uncles all played. So he was around football constantly and developed a passion for the game. His father’s family is from Dominica and his mother’s is from Trinidad and Tobago, and he was eligible to play internationally for the latter, “but it was always my dream to play for Canada.”
Which he did and still does. He wore the Maple Leaf for the national U-18s and was one of the core players in March when the U-20s won their group at a qualifying round—he scored in the opening game—to advance to the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championships in Nicaragua in July and August. That tourney will determine the region’s representatives for the 2027 U-20 World Cup and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
Bruno was about 15 when he began to grasp that he could make a career in professional football, when Sigma travelled to major tournaments and showcase events “where I was able to play against other guys my age who are premier guys in the world. When you’re playing against clubs like PSV and Genk, you’re testing yourself against the best of those your age and you’re able to see where you rank among them. I think I showed well and I gained more confidence in believing in myself. That’s when I think I realized it was a turning point; that I could take this seriously.”
He wants to continue being aggressive, impacting games with an ability to win challenges and duels, but also to make progressive passes and get the game flowing from the midfield. And he’s working even more intensely on being able to score goals.
“That’s a part of the game I’m trying to improve on, finding the back of the net, and it will make me more versatile.”
His start against then-defending-champion Cavalry last season, experiencing close at hand—albeit from the bench—the intense atmosphere and pressure of January’s two Champions Cup games and the potential to play much more for Forge this year, add to his determination to make this a major season in his career arc.
“Playing for Canada helps young players,” Smyrniotis said. “I don’t think it’s the most important thing but you’re playing competitive games, which does help. But for all young players the most important thing is that they establish themselves here, on our club.”