The clock ticks, the calendar flips.
And like the inspiring underdog’s song “The Final Countdown,” which has appeared in numerous movies, that reality must resonate with Forge FC as they enter their last week of preparations for heavily favoured Los Tigres, one of Mexico’s best and most popular teams.
The Hammers continue their hothouse run-up — they returned from a short off-season three weeks ago and have spent two weeks in Cancún training — to the first leg of the home-and-home Champions Cup first round against Tigres, Tuesday, Feb. 3. at Hamilton Stadium, they’ll be coming off a second official friendly match Tuesday morning in Cancún. They played local third-tier side Inter Playa Saturday and, for the second January in a row, will kick off against talented (and well-paid) Orlando City SC of MLS Tuesday morning in Cancún.
“The friendlies are really important but the opposition we’re thinking about right now is Tigres,” Hamilton head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said from Mexico Sunday after his team had defeated Inter Playa 2-0 in a matchup in which they could have scored four or five more goals but were affected by the quality of the pitch in the final third.
“It was a good game Saturday. There were a lot of good processes that we’ve been working on. I thought it was very good. The way these games set up, the level is lower but the great thing is that with these Mexican teams they work their socks off. They don’t ever stop.
“All around, I was happy with what we did out there. We extended the minutes on quite a few guys as we’re trying to get them prepared and are thinking who will be the starting lineup next week.”
Smyrniotis, of course, won’t tip his hand as to what processes the Hammers are working on, nor even who’s stood out with his play so far. Forge doesn’t want Tigres to have any more information than they already have.
These are Forge’s fourth trip in five years to Champions Cup and its cold-warm bowls, and it’s the second straight year they’ve started training in January in Hamilton, sometimes at Hamilton Stadium, mostly indoors at Redeemer University.
It’s also the second straight year they’ll face Orlando City on the Mayan Riviera. Last year the teams battled to a 0-0 draw.
“Honestly it’s been good,” Smyrniotis said of this year’s Cancún experience. “If I compare it to last year I think we’re much further ahead. Bringing Danny Krutzen in, he knows what’s going on, and even though we’ve got a few new guys, it’s been an easy integration.”
“We played Orlando City last year here and it was a very good tuneup match. They always play with a good level of aggressiveness. That fits what we want because that’s what we’ll find at Tigres. Same thing with Inter Playa; they play at a high level of intensity that’s hard for us to find, quite frankly, at home in friendly matches.”
Orlando City is still building its roster for the MLS season. They lost in the opening round of the MLS playoffs and did not qualify for Champions Cup this year. They begin the regular season in four weeks against Red Bull and follow that immediately with a head-to-head with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami.
Orlando has signed goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau, who is hoping to regain his spot as the top keeper for Canada’s World Cup-bound national men’s team. And they’ve got a lot of other high-salaried players. Last year’s players’ budget was about $17 million (CDN), more than 10 times the CPL salary cap.
They’ve brought in defensive midfielder Eduard Atuesta from LA FC with a transfer value of about $4 million and, just after their 0-0 friendly draw with the Hammers last year, signed German winger Marco Pašalić, who became one of the MLS’s most significant 2025 arrivals, with a dozen goals in his first 33 games in central Florida. In August they landed American left back Marco Farfan from FC Dallas and in December acquired young Brazilian winger Tiago Souza as a U-22 Initiative player.
Among the notables who were with Orlando this time last year are attacking midfielder Martín Ojeda, who has 25 goals in 101 games over the past three seasons, and tall American striker Duncan McGuire, who’s been with the club three years and is valued at about $3 million.
“We played them last year and they put their top guys on the pitch,” said Smyrniotis, expecting the same kind of approach from Orlando City on Tuesday. “Ojeda is a guy who really stands out.”
After Saturday’s 2-0 win over Inter Playa, Smyrniotis didn’t bring the squad back to the training pitch until Sunday night but held team bonding Sunday morning at the pool and at the beach next door, which included “a bit of water polo.”
Veterans Brian Wright and Tristan Borges had the Forge goals against Inter Playa and Smyrniotis said, “We regulated everybody’s time. The guys who might start (against Tigres) are at about 70 minutes. We don’t want to push it to the 90 yet because we’re not there in training, and we’ll look to do the same against Orlando, trying to push some guys to 70-75 minutes.
“Inter Playa may not have had top quality and we were able to play around them — we did a great job of that — but when we had the ball they would constantly exert pressure. They didn’t stop for 90 minutes. Mexican teams put immediate pressure on the ball and it’ll be the same with Orlando City. It’s important for us to see that.”
Forge players will take a half-day for themselves Wednesday morning before flying home that night and resuming intense training Thursday. They hope it will be at Hamilton Stadium, if the pitch has been adequately plowed. In a worst-case scenario they’d train Thursday indoors at Redeemer University.
Los Tigres, meanwhile, may not arrive in Hamilton until at least Sunday for their team’s adaptation to the cold. They return from Liga MX’s full week off with a road game in León Saturday, play here Tuesday, are home to Santos Laguna the following Saturday, then host Forge three days later in the second cup leg.
“No matter what the weather is, as long as the field is cleared we want to be out there, outside, on Thursday,” Smyrniotis says. “We have to play in the elements, it’s an advantage for us.”