After a Canadian Premier League weekend crammed with drawn results—including one of their own—all Forge FC needs now is a draw and they will win the CPL Shield as regular-season champions.
That’s not the result they’ll be playing for this Saturday—they want the full three points—when they host York United at Hamilton Stadium, Decision Day in soccer parlance but now known as “The Outcome” in the CPL. To preserve competitive integrity, all four season-ending games will be played at the same time (4 p.m.)
Coming out of a tense weekend, Forge still holds destiny in their own hands, remaining two points up on second-place Ottawa Atlético. Because they hold the tiebreaker with Ottawa, Forge can hoist the Shield and earn a berth in next season’s Concacaf Champions Cup, with a draw or win on Saturday, or a draw or loss from Atlético in Halifax.
“We play to win, but it’s nice to have another result that will help,” Hammers head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said, after his team battled to a 1-1 draw with arch-rivals Cavalry FC in Calgary Friday night.
It was important to extract at least a point from Cavalry as it temporarily moved Forge three points up on second-place Ottawa, who did not play until Sunday and were favoured to beat last-place Vancouver FC in the National Capital. But the gap is still two points with the rapidly-improved Vancouver side holding frustrated Ottawa to a scoreless draw.
That was one of three draws on the weekend and the seventh in the past eight CPL games in what has become a playoff atmosphere for the top five teams: battling for a title (Forge; Atléti) or a home playoff game (Cavalry; York; Wanderers).
On Saturday, Ottawa heads to Halifax, where the Wanderers want to win to host a playoff game, York has the same goal as they visit Hamilton, and Cavalry ditto as they finish up in Vancouver.
In Calgary, the Hammers surrendered a goal in the 25th minute off a great set-up by Tobias Warchewski to Sergio Camargo’s header, then equalized on Brian Wright’s authoritative penalty kick in the 31st. Each team mounted some other quality chances with Hamilton’s Jassem Koleilat making a brilliant stop off Eryk Kobza and Calgary’s Marco Carducci robbing Ali Hojabrpour.
The equalizer was Wright’s 10th league goal in the first Forge campaign, tied for fourth in the CPL, and one more than his career-high established last year with York when he was voted the league’s Player's Player of the Year.
“We spread our scoring around, but we’ve always said we like double-digit goals from the striker, and Brian’s done that,” Smyrniotis said.
With the draw, Hamilton finished with 26 points on the road, one more than their previous high. With another draw or, preferably, a win on Saturday, they will become the second CPL team ever to go undefeated at home. Cavalry got their first with Friday’s draw to close out their home schedule unbeaten.
“We’ve done a lot of good things this year,” said Smyrniotis, “which is why we want a positive result this weekend so it’s a culmination of all of those efforts.”
Cavalry was creative in its formations, with Ali Musse, Mihail Gherasimencov, and Shamit Shome unavailable because they were on international duty. But they had a revved-up crowd behind them, especially after the opening goal, and Forge responded well. Arguably, they could have pressed a little more in the second half, but late in the game wanted to make sure they preserved what may emerge as an essential point.
This year, Forge has had home-and-away draws with York and a 2-1 August 9 win at York over their 905 Derby Rivals.
“They’re a resolute team,” Smyrniotis said. “They work really hard.”
York battled back from a two-goal deficit with an extra-time marker from Luca Accettola in the 94th minute on Thursday night to tie lower-tier Pacific 2-2. They can still land a home playoff game with a win over the Hammers.
“This weekend you’ll get the best version of every team,” Smyrniotis said. “Including us.”