There are all kinds of measuring sticks for what Forge FC did to CF Montréal in the opening leg of the two-game Canadian Championship quarter-finals Tuesday night—beginning with the 1-0 margin of the Hamilton victory, which unduly flattered Montréal---and here’s a subtle but illuminating one.
No Need for Substitutions
Forge FC, despite playing with energy, ball control, and superior physicality, did not make a single substitution until there were just over five minutes left in the regulation hour and a half.
Even then, they removed only the two forwards who had brilliantly combined for the game’s only goal: striker Brian Wright, the finisher, and winger Nana Ampomah, who had set him up and is emerging into the silky form that brought him here from Ghana and Belgium early last season.
“We looked at substitution but we were comfortable,” Hammers head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said afterward as Forge basked in the afterglow at Hamilton Stadium. “As a coach the last thing you want to do is change just to change and throughout most of the game we were in comfortable situations. We made the changes a bit later because we didn’t feel we needed to do anything different.”
Normally, Smyrniotis, the CPL’s maestro of crafty substitutions, would begin inserting replacements between the 70th and 75th minute, but not only was he satisfied with the way his team was controlling the visitors, he didn’t have much bench depth to draw upon.
While CF Montréal head coach Marco Donadel was instituting a sit-back approach because he had only four substitutes available because of injury, he ended up using them all in the hopes of stirring something—anything—up from his side which came out terribly flat and full of inexplicably errant passes in the first half before finding a measure of control and incentive in the second half.
Depleted Lineup, Full Effort
But Smyrniotis was missing core starters David Choinière, Tristan Borges**,** and Ali Hojabrpour, who tend to drive the offence, especially against MLS and Mexican teams. Ascending midfielder Ben Paton was also out for injury precautionary measures.
So two players who’d been plagued by injuries most of the young season started and went the whole 90 minutes. Centre back Malik Owolabi-Belewu was in the lineup for the first time this term, pairing with Dan Nimick in the middle, and Marko Jevremović went to left back, where he was a two-way force all game. That moved the versatile veteran centre back Alex Achinioti-Jönsson to Hojabropour’s pivotal midfield spot, and he owned it.
The Hammers were full measure for the win and could have had more, extracting top performances from every man on the pitch.
But it was the impenetrable back line which was most notable. CF Montréal didn’t touch the ball in the Hamilton box until the 35th minute and thereafter had every thrust blunted by brave blocks and safety-valve headers from the defenders: Nimick, Jevremović, Owolabi-Belewu and Rezart Rama.
Meanwhile, Wright was leveraging his way under the skin of the entire Montréal team, but particularly goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois, whom Wright constantly screened. One of their exchanges incited a hockey-style mob scene in the second half.
“I wouldn’t say it’s part of my game, but whether you call it gamesmanship or whatever, I would say at certain moments they were frustrated out there,” Wright said.
Wright knows a little about frustration this year as he’s had several golden chances, including a couple in this game, go for naught.
But he and Ampomah had something purring all night. Ampomah was creative around the box and, for the past three games, has provided superb passes to teammates while also having some scoring chances himself.
Wright and Ampomah Combine for the Winner
The pair were finally rewarded in the 78th minute when Ampomah made a nice foray to his left and steered a well-timed ball into Wright, who was only a filament away from offside. Last year’s CPL Players’ Player of the Year showed a natural scorer’s composure in pushing the ball over Sirois and then heading it into the net.
“As a striker, you always want to score in every game,” Wright said. “And obviously, today was a big game, so I’m happy to have done exactly what Forge brought me here to do.
“We talked about trying to play in depth at certain moments, and Nana did a good job of cutting in. We made eye contact, and I was able to make a good run, and he made what I thought was a pin-perfect ball, and I finished it.”
Ampomah added, “I saw him running and he’s fast and I said, ‘Let me just chip it to him.’ I think he’s going to score a lot more goals…he just needed to score this one.”
And Ampomah said Wright’s overt aggressiveness on this night did not go unnoticed by his teammates.
“In training we spoke about that: he’s fast and he’s strong so we have to take advantage of that.”
Ampomah, who had battled injuries all of last season, is coming into his own especially with his initial three steps on the ball and his head coach praised his night’s work.
“With Nana it’s the final third where we allow him to make sure he expresses himself as much as he can, and be direct, go at opponents,” Smyrniotis said. “In the first two-thirds I tell players to keep it simple, then come up with whatever you like in the final third. He’s embracing that more and more each week and I think that’s going to help us.”
Montréal Looked Flat and Frustrated
It’s nearly two months, July 9, until the second leg is played at Montréal’s Stade Saputo, where Forge came of age last year by eliminating CF Montréal in the same quarter-final round to win 3-2 on aggregate. The home side actually had the odds advantage in that one because away goals would be a tie-breaker and they’d drawn 1-1 in Hamilton in the first leg. This year the format was altered and away goals are irrelevant: if the teams are tied on aggregate at the end of 90 minutes in Montréal, it’s straight to penalty kicks.
Smyrniotis’s team remains undefeated in regulation time at home against MLS teams and in its last five games against Montréal and Toronto from the more highly rated, and much richer, U.S.-based MLS, have won two, drawn two, and lost just one.
Tuesday, they pressed Montréal into a myriad of mistakes, the same kind which has kept them from winning more than one game in MLS league play, and reinforced Smyrniotis’ front-foot philosophy of concentrating on their own style, not the opponent’s.
Donadel said that, given his team’s four games in 11 days and no central back to sub in, the intention was to play a low intensity. But he certainly didn’t anticipate the intensity would be as low as it was in the opening 45 minutes. They were much more alert after the break, but Forge was still in control.
“We made a lot of technical mistakes,” Donadel said. “I didn’t like the first half because we didn’t fight, and in the second half, there was another mistake, and we conceded the goal. We aren’t amazing in duels, but I was expecting more.”
So was his keeper, Sirois.
“The first half was unacceptable,” he said. “We obviously approached this with a different tactical style in mind. We know how Forge plays, and we respect them. We executed a game plan, but they wanted it more. We wanted to be a little nastier on the second ball, but in the first half, we weren’t.
“We have the second leg at home, and it’s just unfortunate we have to wait a couple of months to play that game.”
Donadel, while concerned about his team’s soft effort in the opening period, emphasized that “this was just the first half of two games.”
HAMMERS AND NAILS:
- Final possession statistics of 52 percent for Forge and 48 percent for CF Montréal did not reflect the balance of play. More indicative was Forge’s 107 passes in the final third of the pitch to Montréal’s 38, as reported by canpl.ca
- MF Mo Babouli was energetic all night and has found his game in his second Forge stint
- It was a big night for the CPL as Valour FC, tied for last place in the CPL, held Vancouver Whitecaps, the best Canadian MLS team, to a 2-2 draw in the opening leg of their Canadian Championship quarterfinal. Rocco Romeo and Bruno Figueiredo scored for Winnipeg’s Valour
- Hamilton-born forward Theo Corbeanu, who played minor for Quinndale, Mount Hamilton, Hamilton Sparta, and Saltfleet, is enjoying a solid stretch: the former Wolverhampton Wanderer scored twice in TFC’s 6-1 win over CF Montréal on the weekend after also scoring in Toronto’s loss to Montréal in the Canadian Championship opening round, and he was named to Canada’s 60-player preliminary roster for the men’s Concacaf Gold Cup.
- Final rosters must be submitted in early June for the tournament, which runs for three weeks from mid-June on.