The man of the hour—and that’s almost exactly how much time he’s played in his burgeoning pro career - put it best.
“It’s hard to get into the starting 11, because these guys are the best players in the league,” said Forge FC attacker Hoce Massunda, who doesn’t turn 20 for another three weeks, but celebrated early on Saturday. “I’m just trying to learn from the best so that one day I can be the best like them.”
The creative forward scored his first professional goal in the 89th minute of Hamilton’s defensively tactical 1-0 victory over Pacific on Vancouver Island Saturday, and served to loudly remind the CPL that the Hammers aren’t just about seasoned veterans, although they’ve certainly got a lot of those. Even without two injured all-time CPLers, Player of the Year Tristan Borges and big-moment David Choinière, available to play, they can threaten like a storm cloud rumbling in from different directions.
Since their inception, they’ve drawn on a myriad of ways to get results. They create so much tense competition in training that anyone who makes the game-day roster, even for bench strength and learning experience, which was Massunda during February’s two-game Champions Cup series against Monterrey, has to earn it under game-like conditions in practice.
Massunda did what Hamilton hasn’t done quite enough of this season: seizing an opportunity from a primo scoring position, just outside the Pacific box, and without hesitation driving an accurate shot which curved out of reach of Pacific keeper Callum Irving.
Awarded a controversial corner kick, tone-setter Kyle Bekker had driven the ball into the box, but it was headed away by a Pacific defender right back up the middle. A well-positioned Massunda thundered it home and was immediately mobbed by his teammates.
That goal, 19 minutes after he came into the game, gave Forge its first CPL win after four consecutive and mostly unsatisfying draws, and kept them just four points back of CPL co-leaders HFX Wanderers and Atlético Ottawa. But despite remaining the league’s only undefeated team, with three wins and those four draws, Forge is tied for fourth with surging Cavalry FC, who just happen to be the visitors to Hamilton Stadium on Saturday (5 p.m., OneSoccer/TSN).
It was another clean sheet for Forge, whose stingy defensive play this season makes Ebenezer Scrooge seem generous. They have allowed but five goals in their seven matches, and central defender Dan Nimick was chosen to the league’s weekly all-XI team, deservedly so. The defence is not only stonewall, it’s generating offence, and Nimick and Alex Achinioti-Jönsson are among the league leaders in passing.
They haven’t converted with enough consistency in the final third of the pitch, but there are certainly rumblings, with Nana Ampomah delivering another confident effort up front, Brian Wright having his chances all season, and now Massunda showing that he’s harbouring a lot of promise. It’s been a Forge trait—see Borges, Kwasi Poku, and others—to first identify, then develop young players and let them grow at their own pace. Massunda, from Mississauga, has spent lots of time with Forge’s affiliate Sigma FC chain, which follows the same principles as the fully professional club.
As they pass the quarter-pole of the 28-game season, Forge plays their second home game of the year against an opponent so familiar they could finish each other’s sentences. Cavalry has roared up the standings in the last three weeks, adding finishing touches to its high-volume shot-taking and winning three games in 15 days, by a combined 11-0 tally. Consecutive 4-0 home wins over Pacific, then Valour, following a 3-0 victory at Halifax. Right there, that’s most of their 15 goals, second behind Ottawa.
And they’ve allowed only six goals all season, one more than Forge. So Saturday should be, once again, a match of epic one-on-one and collective duels. That’s been the case most times since both clubs were founded. This will be, stunningly, the 35th time the two teams have played a meaningful game in just over six years, so neither side needs much motivation. But each has it: Forge to try to build on Saturday’s league win and victories over HFX Wanderers and then CF Montréal in the Canadian Championships, and partially avenge Cavalry’s triumph over Forge in the CPL title game last year. Cavalry needs to keep its glorious three-week run going and correct a 1-0 loss in an entertaining season opener in Hamilton.
Mo Babouli, returning for his second stint in Hamilton, had the only goal in that game. He’s 32, spent a year with Sigma, recalibrated his professional career by signing with Forge in 2020 and has scored 50 goals in various professional leagues. On Saturday, Babouli led the first wave of teammates to embrace Massunda, who is 19, happily played for Sigma, has been deliberately nurtured by Forge and in what was just his 59th minute—total on a pro field, scored his first goal to win an important game.
You want a metaphor for franchise success? That one will do for now.