A soccer catch-phrase that captures the vagaries of a short, high-stakes series is that the ball is round and it bounces.
And its corollary is “so anything can happen.”
Combine those theoretical thoughts with the very real fact that Forge FC emerged from Tuesday’s home match with a 0-0 draw against heavily favoured Tigres UANL, and it puts the return match—total goals to count, away goals being used as the first tie-breaker before extra time is invoked—in a different perspective.
After frigid outdoor practices at Hamilton Stadium over the weekend, Forge will head for the balmy weather in Monterrey, where they will play the away leg at Estadio Universitario, the infamous El Volcán.
“We’re big underdogs still, but anything can happen, and we love it,” Hammers backliner Dan Nimick, the CPL’s defensive player of the year, said Saturday.
“We do have the advantage going over there now in that we only need one goal, and a tie can do it due to the away-goal rule. The level of confidence is high in our group because of the performance we put in early in the week against them.
“I think they showed a lot of respect for us with the strong lineup they put out against us, but I think we can now expect a little more respect from the mindset, too. They know we’re a team that’s organized defensively, and we’re going to try to carry that into the second leg. And they’re aware of that, so they’re going to bring the energy and bring their A game to try to break us down. We have to stand up to that challenge.”
Tigres returned to Liga MX play Friday night and moved into second place, pumping in more goals in a 5-1 victory over Santos Laguna than they’d scored in all five of their previous 2026 games combined, including the scoreless draw here.
They pushed hard from the start, although they made lots of defensive miscues, including a horrendous blind pass by Brazilian Rômulo Zwarg, who allowed Santos to open the scoring. But the Tigres led 2-1 at the intermission, then scored on a controversial handball penalty kick and thereafter counter-attacked the pressing Santos desperation with cut-throat precision.
They scored off set pieces, headers, a long shot and from penetration deep into the box, and had erased their 1-0 deficit within seven minutes on goals late in the opening half from Joaquim Henrique and Iván López.
World Cup winner Ángel Correa directed the match onto an irreversible course with his penalty kick in the 60th minute, and Diego Lainez—the most threatening player on the pitch all night—and Diego Sánchez rounded out the scoring late.
This output, even without red-card-suspended legend André-Pierre Gignac (who will play Tuesday in Monterrey) could be viewed as a public statement from Tigres, after they were frustrated by Forge’s clean sheet draw Tuesday night here.
Did the frozen steppes of Hamilton Stadium provide a wake-up call for the Tigres?
“I don’t want to call it a wakeup call necessarily because if you see the lineup they came to Hamilton with, I think they were already preparing for a good match, so I think the football respect was there for that match,” said Forge head coach and sporting director Bobby Smyrniotis. “Tuesday is a game I’m sure they feel confident in playing at home, but we have a lot of confidence ourselves, even being the away team, because the result is up for grabs.”
And the ball is still round. But that ball likely will not have the same capricious tendencies it did in the snow, the wind and the cold in game one. Perfect weather—perhaps low-to-mid-20s (C)—is expected for the second leg.
“In that first game, it was different weather for them to play in, so I think we can expect even better from them,” said Forge defender Mark Jeremović. “On their pitch especially, on that grass, they’re going to fly, and the ball is really going to move, and we need to prepare as much as possible.”
As Smyrniotis indicated, Mexican teams have shown more and more concern for Forge’s persistence, tactical work and resilience over the years, and Hamilton’s steel curtain of defence Tuesday night —peppered with some decent scoring possibilities from a team that still isn’t in mid-season attack form—expanded upon that.
In short, the Hammers have given them a lot more to think about.
“We showed good and bad sides of our play—both teams did—but I think we left something in the tank for the rematch too,” said Jeremović.
Nimick added that Forge is currently breaking down film of Tigres’ big home win in league play Friday night, looking for vulnerabilities they can probe.
“They got five, but they also let some opportunities happen at the other end, and they only got punished with one,” he said. “Their attack is firing on all cylinders right now, and it’s up to us to shut that down.”
This is the first time that Forge has come into the second game of a Cup match not being down at least a goal, and not surrendering an away goal to the visiting Mexican side in the opener.
Forge legend Tristan Borges says that it did not happen by chance. There has been an accumulation of organizational and individual experience and savvy.
“The result in Hamilton helps out, and having a lot of guys who’ve been in the tense situation of these kinds of games helps a lot,” he said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a battle, but us getting the result we did at home gives us some confidence. And that confidence also comes from the years and years of us understanding that as long as we can focus on what we can control…it will help us a lot.”
Smyrniotis acknowledges that Tigres’ prolific scoring outburst after being shut out three times in the previous four games will be an emotional boost for them in front of their massive and rabid crowd at home, where the average attendance this year is 40,000-plus.
“As with any team, whenever you win, going into the next game, it always creates a better vibe in the dressing room,” Smyrniotis said before turning that concept around to his own team.
“And for us, we have that vibe after Tuesday night’s game, and we’ll take that into the next one.”
Forge watch party
For the first time in their four appearances against a Mexican super team in the Champions Cup opening round, Forge heads into the second leg not facing a deficit after their well-conceived 0-0 draw against Tigres UANL Tuesday night in Hamilton.
If they can win or tie—while scoring at least one goal—in the return match in the Monterrey suburbs this Tuesday, Forge would do the improbable and advance to the second round. To help support the club from afar, Shoeless Joe’s Sports Grill on Upper James will be the site of a Watch Party for all Hamilton soccer fans, beginning at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night. Kickoff is scheduled for 10 p.m. in Mexico.
To RSVP for the Watch Party, please go to bit.ly/4rACpWU
More details will be available in the next instalment of the Champions Cup notebook.
Popular “Woobs” returns to Hamilton in a few days to play for Nashville against Ottawa
Tuesday’s Big Chill was not the only Concacaf Champions Cup match scheduled to be played this month in Hamilton Stadium.
Atlético Ottawa, which won its first CPL title in November to qualify for international play for the first time, drew Nashville SC of Major League Soccer as its opening-round opponent. But construction at TD Place in Ottawa has forced a shift of their “home” game 500 kilometres southwest to Hamilton. It will be played at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 17.
Fortuitously for Forge fans, that means they will probably get to see and pay tribute to an old friend.
Woobens Pacius, who ranks second in all-time Forge goals with 32 across all competitions, behind only Borges’s 39, is with Nashville and is expected to be on the roster for the game here.
Pacius, who is still only 24, turned pro with Forge in August of 2021 and spent two-and-a-half years here before signing with Nashville in February, 2024. He played well for their second team in MLS Next Pro, with eight goals in just 17 games, then was loaned to Tampa Bay Rowdies in the USL Championship for 2025 and once again scored at roughly a goal every two games.
Nashville has exercised its option on Pacius’s contract for the 2026 season, and he is listed as part of their current roster.
Pacius was a touted prospect in the CF Montréal Academy, but he had knee injuries in 2018 and 2019, which kept him out of action for about 18 months, and many inside the MLS organization thought he might not play at a high level again. When he was not offered a first-team contract in 2021, Pacius opted to leave for Forge.
“Woobens has a two-and-a-half-year history with our club, and it’s a big history,” Bobby Smyrniotis said. “First and foremost for being an excellent young man, and secondly for his performances and his goals for the club. We shared a lot of joy together. When a player scores, that obviously brings a lot of joy to the fans, and he did that remarkably.
“Ever since he’s left, he’s been progressing, and hopefully we’ll see him on Haiti’s World Cup team in the summer. It’s something we should all be proud of. Woobens came to our club and hadn’t played for more than a year, and maybe was written off because of some injuries at a young age.
“But I remember his first couple of training sessions here with his ability and knack for putting the ball in the net. I thought, ‘This kid’s got fantastic potential, and if he continues to work hard, the sky’s the limit.’”
Pacius has a history against Ottawa. He made his debut against Atlético on the day he signed his first Forge contract, and 17 days later, he scored the first and second goals of his pro career against Ottawa.
In 2022, he had a streak of seven goals in six games, scored the fastest goal in Forge history—striking in the first two minutes—against HFX Wanderers, finished fourth in CPL scoring, and had 13 goals across all competitions including scoring in both legs of the playoff semifinals against Cavalry FC as Forge went on to win the 2022 league title….in Ottawa.