| Final Score: Forge FC 5-0 Valour FC Goalscorers: Borges 26', Babouli 43', Ampomah 45', Choinière 67', Jensen 72' Game of the 2025 season: 65 CPL Match: 660 |
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Match in a minute or less
Ruthless Forge FC picked up their biggest home victory in club history on Saturday night at Hamilton Stadium, 5-0 over Valour FC.
Tristan Borges opened the scoring with his first goal of the campaign, and Mo Babouli and Nana Ampomah both struck before half-time. David Choinière and Noah Jensen then added to the scoring in the second half.
The victory brings Forge to 17 straight matches unbeaten in the CPL regular season, and 20 in all competitions, currently sitting top of the table with a stunning 10-7-0 record.
Three Observations
Dominant Forge make club history with biggest-ever home win
As they picked up their 17th consecutive result without a loss to begin this 2025 CPL season, Forge continues to reach new heights.
You'd think that going unbeaten for this long, there would be some sort of drop off, especially as each week teams line up to be the first to defeat Forge. If anything, they are only getting better.
With a 5-0 victory over Valour FC, they recorded their biggest-ever margin of victory in front of their home fans at Hamilton Stadium.
Saturday's match also saw both Tristan Borges and Noah Jensen score their first CPL goals of the campaign, bringing the team to a stunning 15 different goal scorers in 17 matches. That incredible amount of depth, and the consistent contribution from across the board, has proven central to this team's refusal to lose this year.
Internal competition is a big part of why the club continues to push itself, with so much depth at every position, especially in attack, players cannot afford to drop their standard, or they will be dropped from the team.
Also pushing them? For as good as Forge have been this season, they know they haven't won anything yet. In fact, if Atlético Ottawa defeat York United on Sunday, they still won't be top of the table at the end of the weekend.
"We want to keep putting pressure on other teams," said Forge midfielder Noah Jensen. "Coming out at home and scoring five goals is a good way to do that. But at the same time we always, we know that regardless of our performance every week, we're to have to pick up points if we want to keep racing for the top of the table."
That pressure feels like it is increasing with each week, and each strong performance from this Forge team that are making an incredible push to be back-to-back CPL regular season winners.
Forge's attacking rotation too much for road-weary Valour
Knowing that Valour FC were playing in their third match in eight games, Forge FC elected to deploy an incredibly attacking lineup, and take the game to the visitors on Saturday night -- to great effect.
Captain Kyle Bekker dropped back into the holding midfield position, with Tristan Borges coming into the lineup alongside Mo Babouli as dual number eights. On the wings, Nana Ampomah and David Choinière flanked Brian Wright in an incredibly fluid front three.
Forge started the match by having Jevremović occupy the left wing position in attack, with Ampomah shifting centrally to form a front-two with Wright. Valour actually defended Forge quite well through the opening stages of the match, pressing them high up the field and limiting the Hamilton side's ability to consistently get the ball to those danger men. But in the 26th minute, Forge broke the press, allowing Bekker to run into space and find Ampomah out left -- with Borges burying the rebound from his shot to open the scoring.
Immediately after the goal, they swapped Ampomah over to the right, and Choinière to the left, attacking in a more traditional 4-3-3, albeit one that was still very forward-thinking. That continued throughout the 90 minutes, with Hoce Massunda and Noah Jensen later playing key roles in the way the team attacked off the bench.
"First and foremost, if you look at the lineup that's put out there, it's put out there to attack," said Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis. "When you take away a natural number six, more controlling midfielder and put Bekker in there, it's you want to get forward. You want to get forward quicker. So I'm happy with the result because it's something we wanted to see."
In that deep-lying position, Bekker was able to get on the ball often and dictate the tempo of the game. From that deep-lying role, he was consistently able to break the lines of the Valour press, and find Forge's attackers in pockets of space. Bekker completed 62 of 66 passes, and any time Forge were able to get him the ball, especially with space, it was bad news for Valour.
Bekker's most frequent outlet was Nana Ampomah, who out wide was heavily involved in all five Forge goals -- with the first two coming off of rebounds from shots he took, the third he scored himself, the fourth he played a key role in the build-up, and the fifth he assisted on.
Forge are learning that when Ampomah is on the ball, it's time to get in the box, whether that be for a rebound, a cutback or a cross. Ampomah created all of those scenarios on Saturday -- and it was central to Forge's offensive outburst.
Valour FC don't do enough to help debutant Weir
After winning back-to-back matches for the first time in nearly a year, Valour's momentum came to a harsh halt in Hamilton on Saturday, as they shipped five goals -- and perhaps were lucky it wasn't worse.
What perhaps makes this performance particularly disappointing is the fact that they didn't really protect young goalkeeper Callum Weir, who was making his first-ever professional appearance.
The 21-year-old, who joined the club on a short-term loan, had played against Valour in the TELUS Canadian Championship with TSS Rovers. He was required after an injury to Jonathan Viscosi, and a suspension to Eleias Himaras.
Weir wasn't really at fault for any of the five goals, many of which came from quick side-to-side passes or rebounds after he had made the initial save.
He faced 3.93 expected goals worth of chances from Forge on Saturday, on seven shots on target, and 17 shot attempts -- 16 of which came inside the box.
Valour were left scrambling a lot at the back throughout the game, and Forge did well to force them to play back to Weir on several occasions.
After three strong performances, two of which were wins, in the lead up to Saturday's match, Valour have no choice but to put this one behind them, and consider it a loss and nothing else -- especially after a long week. But they will be disappointed that they couldn't have made Weir's debut a little bit more comfortable.
What They Said
"What makes this team so good? They keep pushing themselves no matter what's going on on the pitch. It's great to get a few goals in front of our fans. They're always great here at Hamilton Stadium, so a few more goals makes them a little bit happier on a Saturday." -- Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis
"We played against a very good team, and at this stage, you have to give credit to the opposition. You know, it's probably the best Forge version that I've seen since I came into the league." -- Valour FC head coach Phil Dos Santos
CanPL.ca Player of the Match
Nana Ampomah, Forge FC
Ampomah was involved in all five Forge goals during an outstanding match against Valour. He scored a goal, and added an assist, on four shot attempts, 11 touches in the box, three chances created, and six dribbles completed.
What’s next?
Forge travel to York Lions Stadium next week to take on the Nine Stripes in a 905 Derby on Saturday, August 9 (1 p.m. ET).
Valour, meanwhile, are back home, where they host Atlético Ottawa on Sunday, August 10 (2 p.m. CT).
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