It is a championship hangover that nobody saw coming. After topping the CPL table by 13 points last season, 2023 regular season winners Cavalry FC sit 11 points behind current league-leaders Atlético Ottawa, not to mention two points out of the playoff places, at the halfway point of the 2024 campaign. A quick look at the numbers suggests Cavalry are still doing a lot of the right things. They have held 54.17 per cent of the ball this season, have attempted 191 shots, second only to Atleti, and have made a league-leading 341 touches in the opposition box, and 459 passes played into the box. In other words, they have a lot of the ball, and are getting it into the right areas. But through 14 matches during the 2024 CPL regular season, Cavalry have put that ball in the back of the opposition net just 14 times. That lack of production is the single biggest reason for their struggles to start the season and is a big departure from last year when they scored a league-leading 46 goals. So what, exactly, has gone wrong for the Cavs in front of goal in 2024? “Data’s one thing, execution’s another,” said Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. after this past weekend’s 2-1 loss to York United. “We’ve got to find a way to get these attacking players, or everybody, putting the ball in the back of the net. It’s that basic.” It is impossible to have this discussion without mentioning the obvious: the attacking third of Cavalry’s starting eleven this year has looked much different year over year. The absence of Myer Bevan, William Akio’s season-ending injury, Ali Musse making just four appearances this year, and Sergio Camargo being in and out of the lineup with injury has unquestionably and understandably had an impact. The 2023 CPL Golden Boot winner Bevan, Players’ Player of the Year Musse, Player of the Year and Defender of the Year Daan Klomp, Akio and Camargo combined for 31 of Cavalry’s 46 regular season goals last season. This year, they have just two among them.
“I can make all the excuses about missing firepower — Myer Bevan leaving, Ali Musse’s injury, Sergio Camargo’s out, Willy Akio, that was the firepower that brought us the attack we had,” said Wheeldon Jr. “But now we’ve got a striker in Tobias Warschewski that’s leading the league with Brian Wright. So we’ve had one person replace the other three, we’ve got to now have others that chip in.” Warschewski, as Wheeldon Jr. mentioned, has picked up a lot of the slack, with seven goals so far this season, tied with the aforementioned Wright of York United, and Atlético Ottawa’s Rubén del Campo, for the league lead. But nobody else has really joined him. Only one other Cavalry player, Fraser Aird, has scored more than a single goal this season, and having just six different goalscorers this season ties them with the Halifax Wanderers for the fewest in the CPL. Another point the Cavalry coach made is that the team isn’t getting the same goalscoring support from the team’s wingers, midfielders and defenders, especially on set pieces, this year. Players in those positions combined for 31 goals last season, but have scored just five times this season. Cavalry were also tremendous at taking control of games early last season, scoring first in a stunning 22 of their 28 regular season matches last season. They had done so in just half (7 of 14) of their regular season games this year. Once they have those leads, Cavalry’s outstanding defensive quality makes it incredibly difficult for opponents to claw back into matches. Cavalry have arguably been the league’s best defensive team again this season, allowing the fewest shots on target in the league (just 2.57 per match), the lowest expected goals against (11.54) and the second-fewest goals against, just 13 in 14 matches. They were also excellent at scoring in bunches last season, finding the back of the net twice or more 17 times in 2023. They have lost just twice in 60 all-time CPL matches between the regular season and playoffs when they have scored two or more goals. They have only scored two or more goals twice this season. “Honestly, we need to take a few more risks in the final third, and that’s all of us,” said Cavalry fullback Tom Field this past weekend. “I’m not just going to blame the attackers, we need to take a lot more risks. I think maybe we need to clear our head when we are in the final third and just have that killer pass or maybe shoot more on target.”
Some of it, as always, comes down to a lack of luck, with Cavalry hitting the woodwork a league-leading 10 times already this season, already more than they did during the 2023 regular season (nine times). With a league-low 12.94 expected goals on target, and only 49 of their 191 attempted shots being on frame, the struggles in front of goal, however, and to translate having the ball in good areas to good scoring opportunities are evident. There has also, perhaps, been an overreliance on width and crossing in the way they have attacked opponents in 2024. It has been effective at times, with seven of their 14 goals scored from lofted crosses played into the box. But with a league-leading 318 crosses (including corners), and 47 headed shots, just 13 of those have ended up on target and just three have gone in the net. There are few, if any, crossers of the ball better in the league than Cavalry’s Fraser Aird so making him a key outlet in the offence is a good strategy, but with Cavalry struggling to capitalize on those crosses it is clearly worth adjusting the attacking approach. Meanwhile, they have scored just five goals this season that weren’t from penalties or crosses played into the box, demonstrating their difficulty in breaking down opponents. Cavalry have already been busy looking to address this issue in the transfer market, signing 26-year-old German striker Nicholas Wähling — who has quickly shown to be a player who will bring more directness to this club in his cameo off the bench against York United this past weekend. But this is going to take a mentality adjustment from the entire team. How they handle this over the second half of the season, starting on Sunday as they host rivals, and 2023 CPL Final opponents, Forge FC at ATCO Field will be the single biggest factor in whether or not they rise up the table in 2024, or become the second consecutive defending regular season winner to miss the playoffs the following year.