| Final Score: Pacific 0-2 Atlético Ottawa Goalscorers: Salter 62', Rodríguez 72' Game of the 2025 season: 63 CPL Match: 659 |
Match in a minute or less
Atlético Ottawa continue to hold a firm grip on first place in the Canadian Premier League table, as they maintained a one-point lead over Forge FC in the race for the CPL Shield after defeating Pacific 2-0 at Starlight Stadium on Saturday.
Sam Salter opened the scoring for Ottawa in the 62nd minute, slotting home on a breakaway to put his team up 1-0, before David Rodríguez doubled his team's lead with a nice individual effort in the 72nd minute.
Then, as they've done in a lot of their games lately, Ottawa saw out the game from there, keeping Pacific off the board to secure an important result for their team.
Three Observations
Ottawa's balance powering second act of 2025 season:
It feels like Atlético Ottawa can hardly set a foot wrong at the moment, hence their position atop the table. Granted, they've had to be nearly perfect to maintain that position for as long as they have, given that the team right behind them has been a Forge team yet to lose in 2025, but Ottawa have remained formidable in their own right, sitting with just one defeat on the year.
Once again, a result like this is a good reminder of why they've been so formidable, too.
As has been the case since the start of the year, they continue to be dangerous offensively, adding two goals to now push their league-leading tally to 35. Plus, they'll be pleased that they did their work in open play in this game, too, scoring twice from that phase of the game after having two straight games where they scored penalties.
At this stage, they almost seem to spit out two goals a game, no matter how they play, with potential for more if they can get the formula right, as they did on this day.
Then, defensively, they seem to get better every week, as they kept yet another clean sheet, their sixth in their last seven CPL matches. Given that they'd conceded 15 goals in their first nine matches, it's been a remarkable turnaround, as they now sit having conceded exactly a goal a game in league play, which is not a bad record at all.
Plus, thanks to their improved defensive play, they've also given more wiggle room for their attack to work with, as there isn't pressure on them to score two or three goals every game to win like they needed to earlier in the season.
That's been especially key in road games like this one, as they've now picked up 18 points from nine road matches, with a loss to the Halifax Wanderers back in May their lone blemish.
Speaking of that Wanderers loss, however, it feels like that defeat has pushed this team to a new level. At the time, it was wondered if that loss could shrink the confidence of a team that opened the year with five victories and two draws, as it was a tough way for them to come down to earth.
Throughout a long season, however, those moments of adversity tend to be plentiful. Because of that, there was no reason to panic - and to Ottawa's credit, they haven't.
Instead, they've used that loss as a big learning lesson, and it's no coincidence that they've conceded just three times in the eight league games they've played since, with this recent run of clean sheets coming off the back of that loss.
Fittingly, the start of their defensive turnaround began against this same Pacific side at this same stadium in early June, in what was actually Ottawa's first clean sheet of the CPL season. As a result, it made this game a bit of a full-circle moment, one that Ottawa did well to commemorate with their latest clean sheet, one that now pushes them up to second in the league in that category, only one behind Forge.
If there were any questions about whether that first Pacific clean sheet they got was a fluke, their play since has indicated it's not the case, as their continued metamorphosis has allowed them to somehow build off their hot start, which some might not have thought possible.
"The focus was on our team having a good performance and to keep improving in the model, defensively and offensively," Ottawa's assistant coach, Diego Campos, said after the match. "We were focused on having a good performance, and I think that the team did that very well."
Lack of possession tests Pacific's resolve:
As seen above, it's not been easy for anyone to play Ottawa right now, but the big reason why isn't due to their attack or their defence.
Instead, it continues to be the work they do on the ball, as they remain very committed to that side of their game. At no point have they considered even trying a more pragmatic approach, and why should they at this stage?
Right now, it's up to any of their opponents to try and challenge them to get off their game, and Pacific were the latest team to fall short.
To Pacific's credit, they went down swinging. Despite seeing just 36.2% of the ball, including 35.2% in the first-half, they kept Ottawa at bay for an hour, as a pair of Ballou Tabla half-chances were the lone Ottawa shots that were given an xG value of more than 0.1 in the first 60 minutes of the match.
A large reason for that, however, was the work of Pacific off the ball, as they did well to stay disciplined and organized in their 5-3-2, which then morphed into a 5-4-1 as the game went on.
Naturally, though, given the lack of time they were spending on the ball, especially in the final third (they completed 78.3% of their passes in the game, but just 59.7% of their passes in the final third), it forced them to spend a lot more work defending than they would've liked.
Not only that, but the work they were doing defensively wasn't easy, either, as they had to do a lot of running from side-to-side to stay organized as Ottawa probed for an opening.
Unfortunately, that heavy effort caught up to them in the end, and it manifested itself in a way they wouldn't have expected. Having done so well to keep Ottawa from doing what they do best, which is to combine quickly around opposing boxes, Pacific were then beaten by something different out of the Ottawa playbook - a ball in behind.
That'll hurt, as that put them behind the eight-ball, as the only thing more difficult than playing Ottawa is playing Ottawa with a lead, and the rest of the game proved as a reminder of that, especially once the second goal went in, as it didn't feel like Ottawa were going to give up that lead.
To their credit, Pacific did push late - six of their 10 shots came after the first Ottawa goal, but ultimately, a lack of shot-quality was their biggest downfall - they had just 0.4 xG on the day, generating no attempt worth more than 0.1 xG. Then, on top of that, they also had just 12 touches in Ottawa's box and 41 final third entries, as they just didn't get as close as they would've liked, either.
The good news for Pacific? This was also the first game of a new era for them, with this being Alejandro Díaz's first game since re-joining Pacific.
While it's expected he can fill the net for Pacific the same way he did in his first stint on the Island, it was always going to be hard for him to get up and firing in his first game, especially in a game against Ottawa.
Plus, a game like this was also a sign that the transition won't be seamless, nor should it be - it always takes a few games for new players to get used to their surroundings, and it's not as if Díaz has played with everyone on this team, even if he's shared the field with a bunch of them.
It'll take time for him to understand how his teammates play, and it'll take time for them to know how he operates, and that was clear on a few occasions. For example, there were a couple of moments where Pacific could've found Díaz in the build-up, where he's an active participant, while a few moments where they hesitated to put in crosses for him to get after also stood out.
If Díaz is going to get up and firing, those are little moments that will need to be ironed out, but that will only happen with time, with games like this serving as a good reference of what will need to change.
"We need to understand that (Alejandro) Díaz is a player who wants the ball," Pacific head coach, James Merriman, said. "He shows up in really good spaces every time to receive the ball to get or to take it off the chest, but I don't think we found him enough in transitional moments and the build-up play."
"We can use him there; he's comfortable receiving with a man on his back, but we haven't played like that this season."
Salter keeps firing as Rodríguez re-finds his form:
Of course, while Ottawa's offensive success in 2025 has come down to their ability to attack as a team, given that they sit with 10 different goal scorers, including four with four or more goals, two key names drive this team forward offensively - Sam Salter and David Rodríguez.
Fittingly, they both found the net in this game for just the third time this season, although it's been rare for Ottawa to play a game where neither scores - that has happened just four times in regular season action so far.
Because of that, when Salter found the net first, it was not a surprise, as he scored his league-leading 11th goal, doing so in style.
While Salter's goal was almost expected, given his form (he has not gone over a game without scoring since early May), Rodríguez's goal a few minutes later was a bit more of a welcome surprise. Although it was his sixth goal, which pushes him to fifth in the Golden Boot race, it was his first goal since May, as he'd gone six games without scoring since finding a brace against Vancouver FC on May 31st.
That's huge, because while he'd been putting in strong performances in Ottawa's attack, he'd been unable to produce as much as he'd have hoped after a blistering hot start, one that had led to extra attention from opposing defences.
Granted, his loss has been someone like Salter's gain, but Ottawa will want to have a world where both are firing at the same time - especially given that they've got a record of 5W-1D-0L when Rodríguez scores, showing another reason why they'll be pleased to see him find the back of the net.
"He's a big part of our offence, a great player for our team, and one of the best in the league," Salter said of Rodríguez. "He's going to get a lot of eyes every game because of his talents, it's the way he makes plays, takes players on, so I'm happy for him (to score), he deserves it."
At the same time, don't discount the importance of Salter's goals (Ottawa has a record of 7W-1D-0L when he finds the back of the net now), especially in terms of consistency - he is yet to go longer than two games without scoring in CPL play all year.
For a striker, that sort of consistency is almost unheard of, and it has put Salter into some impressive company - he's now just three goals away from snapping the single-season CPL record of 14, set by João Morelli in 2021.
Plus, quietly, he's now three goals behind the CPL's all-time record, too, showing that the single-season mark is not the only record in his sights.
Having just snapped Ottawa's all-time goalscoring record across all competitions, this could be the first of many records he ends up targeting over the next stretch, provided he continues this form.
That last point is key, of course, as form can quickly disappear for strikers, but so far Salter has continued to hit all of the right buttons, proving to be the consistent piece spearheading Ottawa's offensive excellence, helping them hum along like a machine each week.
What They Said
"At the end of the day, we know that any team can lose one, two or three matches, but the most important thing for us is the consistency of playing our model, while training and living the same way that we try to play. No matter the results, we trust the players, as we know what they are capable of doing on the pitch." -- Atlético Ottawa assistant coach Diego Campos
"We've worked a lot on our defensive balance, because that was something that we needed to work on. In the first part of the season, we scored a lot of goals, but we were also conceding a lot of goals, too, so I feel like having this balance of still scoring goals but also being balanced in defence is going to help us in the long run, if we want to keep performing." -- Atlético Ottawa forward Sam Salter
"Both goals were a little bit light from us, considering the work that we put in to get to that point. But at the end of the day, it's a very difficult match for us, I don't think that we took good care of the ball, and that's why we spent most of the game without it. In those transitional moments, we didn't take care of the passes, we didn't secure loose balls, we had some sloppier passes cut out in our build-up. At the end of the day, if we're not there from the start, ready to play, it was always going to be difficult." -- Pacific FC head coach James Merriman.
CanPL.ca Player of the Match
Loïc Cloutier, Atlético Ottawa
Loïc Cloutier ended up having a key impact on both sides of the ball for Ottawa in this game, as he tends to do at right centre back. On the ball, he completed 70 out of 81 of his passes, including four out of 10 long balls and 13 passes into the final third, but also had one assist and two chances created, too.
Then, defensively, he won two tackles, had four clearances, four interceptions, two recoveries and won four out of six of his duels to complete a balanced performance.
What’s next?
Pacific will remain at home for their next match, as they get set to welcome Cavalry FC to Starlight Stadium for a special long weekend match on Monday, August 4th (3:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. MT). Meanwhile, Atlético Ottawa will return home to TD Place for their next game, as they host rivals York United in a crucial derby match on Sunday, August 3rd (4:00 p.m. ET).
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