Forge FC, like everybody else, had its Thursday schedule radically disrupted by the fierce weather conditions.
With a flight to the Mexican resort area of Cancún set for Saturday, instead of continuing their increasingly-intensified practice regime indoors at Redeemer University, the Hammers were limited to team Zoom calls outlining the plans for upcoming conditioning and travel to their warm-weather training grounds.
“(Cancelling practice) was about the safety of the players getting in and out,” said head coach Bobby Smyrniotis, who had left his Toronto home for Hamilton early in the morning but returned after an hour when he’d only been able to drive five kilometres.
“Some of the guys who live around the stadium went in for some conditioning.”
Forge players returned from yet another short off-season a week ago Monday and after medicals they started training the next day for their Concacaf Champions Cup first-round home-and-away series against Mexican powerhouse Los Tigres.
“The guys have been working hard and training well,” Smyrniotis said. So a day’s break won’t be harmful.
They travelled back and forth from Hamilton Stadium except for last weekend when the warmer weather allowed them to train on the pitch where they’ll host Los Tigres UANL, the Monterrey-area side which lost the Liga MX first-half (Apertura) on penalty kicks (9-8) to Toluca in mid-December.
This will be the fourth Champions Cup (formerly Champions League) appearance for the Forge in the past five seasons, all against big-name Mexican clubs. They played Cruz Azul in 2022, Chivas of Guadalajara in 2024 and CF Monterrey last season, with the Mexican sides advancing to the second round each time.
In all four series, the first game has been in early winter in Hamilton with the return leg in much-warmer Mexico.
This is the second year Forge will train for a fortnight in Cancún, where they can also play some friendly matches against local pro teams and MLS side Orlando City SC, which is also training there. In January 2024 Forge trained in Querétaro, Mexico.
“I think it helped us last year in Cancún,” Smyrniotis said. “Querétaro was a great facility but last year, the environment—with a beach next door—really helped our team. Our guys always talked all year about pre-season in Cancún. It’s the general air…everything’s nicer in the sun, in a nice place, looking at the water.”
“Training away for two weeks allows us to get outside, and it gives us more touchpoints with the guys, having group meetings and individual meetings. The past couple of years it’s been a great opportunity for players and new players to bond and to get together and work on their group dynamic.
“This year we were generally bringing the guys back into it over the first five training sessions. As of this week, we’ve already started being a bit more detailed on what our opponent might look like and the things we need to focus on.
“We’re not building blocks in for the season, we’re really building towards two games and one opponent. We’ll have three things we focus on when we’re on the ball and a couple of things we’ll focus on defensively. Everything we’re doing in training always has that in mind…and when we get to Mexico, it’ll be more directly on what we have to do. Going to Mexico gives us an opportunity to train twice a day, early in the morning and again in the evening. And we’ll take advantage of that other than the days we play games.”
It’s the Riviera Maya…but it’s definitely not a vacation.
Forge will play two friendlies—soccer language for exhibition games—in Cancún.
Forge will play two games at the Moon Palace Arena in the Moon Palace Resort; the first against local third-division Mexican team Inter Playa; the second against MLS side Orlando City SC.
Forge played very well against Orlando City in a 0-0 draw in last January’s friendly. Orlando then went on to set a franchise record with 63 goals in MLS play but were knocked out of the playoffs in the wild-card round, the earliest post-season exit in the franchise’s 16-year history.
On Thursday Orlando City re-signed midfield star Martín Ojeda to a new long-term contract. Last season, the Argentine set a club record for goal contributions with 39 across all competition and had goal contributions in 12 straight MLS games, tied for second all-time in league history, so if he plays the friendly it will be solid preparation for Forge as they prepare to face Los Tigres only a couple of weeks later.
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As one of Canada’s most internationally-active teams over recent years, Forge has developed a habit of introducing young players, and players new to the side, to the team with high-stakes winter football against big-time, and affluent, Mexican franchises. Some former Forge who’ve returned to the team—like Mo Babouli last year and Dan Krutzen this season—have played the first games of their Hamilton 2.0 tenure in the Champions Cup.
This year, 19-year-old Spanish striker Ismael Oketokoun will be on the Forge roster after signing recently and 20-year-old midfielder Christos Liatifis will be with the club for the first game as a senior pro after being signed from Greece’s Panathinaikos Athens U-19s.
Kwasi Poko’s pro debut came against Cruz Azul in 2022 and current Forge players Zayne Bruno (2024), Amadou Koné (2024), Hoce Massunda (2025) and Maxime Filion (2025).
Los Tigres’ local connection
When they get to Mexico to train, Forge will begin seriously focusing on Los Tigres’ playing tendencies and train with an eye to countering them.
“They’re a team typical of the big Mexican teams,” Smyrniotis says. “They have a lot of depth, and they have talent in all the lines from goalkeeping up to the forward line.”
The Tigre the Canadian soccer world will be paying closest attention to is Marcelo Flores, the 22-year-old winger who grew up in Georgetown, Ontario and has been courted by both the Canadian and Mexican senior national teams. He was also eligible to play for England and was called up to their under-16 side in 2019 but decided instead to play for Mexico’s U-16s, and a year later was also named to Canada’s provisional roster for the 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup. But he opted to remain overseas at the Arsenal youth academy and later graduated to the senior roster and then moved to Spain, then Mexico where he’s been with Los Tigres since 2023.
In Los Tigres’ opening game of the season’s second half last weekend Flores scored both goals in a 2-1 road victory. Both were scorer’s goals from the left side: one on an accurate grass-burner to the far post, the other high just under the crossbar.
“He’s playing on Tigres; that says enough,” Smyrniotis said. “He’s a young player and has quality. So he’s doing something right for sure.”
Flores’ mother is Canadian of English heritage and his father Rubén Flores is Mexican and played for Cruz Azul in the early 1990s. Both his sisters play professionally in Mexico, one of them for Los Tigres.
Rubén Flores coached the Hamilton Rage of the Premier Development League before it moved to Kitchener Waterloo. He was also coach of Team Ontario youth teams where one of his players was Jelani Smith, now Forge’s Director of Soccer Operations.