As they approach the halfway mark of their 2025 Canadian Premier League season, Forge is putting together one of their best defensive seasons to date, sitting with just nine goals conceded through their first 12 games.
On pace to concede just 21 goals in 28 regular-season games, that total would put them second in all-time CPL history across a full season, only behind the Cavalry side that conceded just 19 times in 28 regular-season games in 2019.
Granted, this Forge side has made a habit of being good defensively over the years - you don’t have as much success as they do in the regular season and playoffs without some focus on the defensive side of the game. That’s reflected in their numbers, as they’ve never conceded more than 32 goals in a full season, which means they’ve never conceded more than 1.14 goals per game on average.
At the same time, this has remained a team that does its best work on the ball, averaging 43 goals in each of the five full seasons they’ve played, while typically sitting between 52 and 58% possession.
Yet, this 2025 team has found a way to keep those principles intact, as they’ve still scored 21 goals, the second most in the CPL, only behind Atlético Ottawa. When combined with the new level they’ve hit defensively, that’s proven to be a good combination, which is why they sit tied for second in the table, sitting with 24 points in 12 games, the only team yet to lose in CPL action this year.
Not only that, but they’re also on pace for their most points since 2019, when they had 56 points in 28 games, with the 50 points they got in 2021 and 2024 the closest they’ve gotten to that figure since.
As the old saying goes, defence wins championships, and Forge’s defence is helping them keep pace in what’s proven to be a good race for the CPL Shield, a crown they’re looking to defend after winning that 2024 regular season title.
No doubt, however, that the big goal has been to lift the North Star Cup for the fifth time, as they missed out on a regular season and playoff double in 2024, falling to Cavalry in last year’s CPL final.
In a sense, that final defeat has fuelled this rise, however. On that day, Forge rued the fact that they conceded twice in the first half, as they dug themselves a hole they weren’t able to climb out of, eventually falling 2-1.
Now, they’ve conceded two goals in a game just three times, and they've otherwise kept opponents to one or fewer goals in their nine other matches, also keeping six clean sheets. Not only that, but they’ve proven to be at their best defensively in some of their biggest games, too, as they’ve conceded just one goal in two Canadian Championship matches, for example.
That bodes well for them ahead of the playoffs, where they’ll want to maintain this defensive solidity.
With that in mind, however, where is Forge excelling defensively this year? For what it’s worth, they’re averaging just 50.2% possession, which is 2% fewer than their lowest season in that category, which shows that they’re defending more than usual.
They haven’t minded that, as they’ve conceded just 14.33 xG in 12 games, keeping opponents to less than 1.26 xG in seven out of their 12 games, never allowing more than 2 xG in a game.
Interestingly, that 14.33 xG figure pretty average by their standards, as it puts them on pace to concede 33.4 xG, which is higher than what they conceded in 2023 (32.44 xG), 2022 (24.05 xG) and 2021 (29.85 xG), with the latter being their two best defensive seasons to date, but it's still a good number.
That’s also shown in Forge’s shot conceded numbers, as they’re on pace to allow 317 shots, which is again higher than what they conceded in 2022 (273 shots) and 2021 (271 shots), but otherwise would sit as their third-best figure.
When directly looking at 2022 and 2021, however, those numbers mean that Forge conceded 0.08 xG per shot in 2022 and 0.11 xG per shot in 2021 - by comparison, they’ve faced 0.10 xG per shot, which puts them in a similar range - although it’s worth noting that they also conceded 0.09 xG per shot in 2023 and 0.10 xG per shot in 2024 despite facing a higher volume of shots.
Where they’ve had success, though, is in their duels - they’re winning 51.8% of their duels, having previously never won above 49.7% of their duels in a full season, which perhaps best paints what’s fuelling Forge’s defensive approach - their overall commitment to defending, as their defensive output has otherwise stayed the same.
It isn’t always easy to paint that sort of commitment in statistical terms, but duels are not a bad place to look, as it shows that Forge is getting the better of 50/50 battles, which comes down to will, determination and organization.
Seeing that, and hearing them speak about the effort they’ve put into defending, helps better explain their strong defensive numbers, which have come off the back of a better collective approach, instead of any specific changes.
That's quite impressive, especially for a team that underwent significant changes to their backline this offseason with the return of Rezart Rama, as well as the arrival of Dan Nimick, Marko Jevremović and Ben Paton, but those new faces have helped embody the energy that Forge wanted out of their defenders this season.
“We're better as a collective,” Forge captain, Kyle Bekker, said in June. “I think our entire identity right now is that we have strength in numbers; anything we do, whether we're attacking or whether we're defending, when we go on the pitch, it has to be done as 11.”
“We have to be a unit. Because we saw from what we did last year, we had a ton of success, and we were a very creative group, but there were moments where we felt like we were a little splintered, and it allowed for results to kind of go ambiguously, up in the air, but now we know that when we're determined and when we're a unit, we're tough to break down.”
Plus, it’s important to remember that Forge have also remained pretty good offensively, as seen above. At the end of the day, a good offence can always be a good defence, as there’s only one ball to share between both teams.
Of course, with Forge’s possession numbers dropping, it can be easy to say that they’re not managing the ball as much, but it’s worth noting that Forge are being strategic with where they hold the ball, too.
For example, in their own half, they’re completing 91% of their passes, which is only behind 2024 (91.3%) and 2022 (91.1%), which were two of their best-ever offensive seasons, as they’re not turning the ball over as much in dangerous areas.
That’s key, as a lot of goals in modern soccer tend to be caused by errors in and around a team’s box, which is why more teams than ever are pressing opponents to try and force those mistakes.
Forge isn’t making many of those errors, however, and that’s helping them keep the ball out of their net. Then, for good measure, they're even turning that into a reliable source of goals, with Nimick having three assists, for example.
Yet, what that shows is that their improved defensive play comes down to multiple factors. As a team, they’re committed to getting numbers behind the ball and staying organized, but on the ball, they’re limiting their mistakes in dangerous areas, while defensively, they’re getting stuck into duels and doing the dirty work required to protect their goal. You combine that with the play of goalkeeper Jassem Koleilat, who is third in goals prevented and first in save percentage, and that’s also another big boost.
Then, all of that put together has led to the season Forge has had to date, and they’d love nothing more for that to continue.
“As much as I like to score a lot of goals, as much as I like to have a lot of the ball, I've always said this since day one, I hate being scored on,” head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said in June. “I always want to take care of the defensive end of the game, and we're doing a good job at it.”
This has been the story of this 2025 team, however. They might not have the same flash as past teams and haven’t even appeared to play at their best yet, but they’re about as well-drilled and organized as they’ve ever been under Smyrniotis.
That’s a credit to the experience in their group, and that experience has guided them through a strong start, one they hope they can turn into another regular season title and playoff crown.
They’ll have a chance to boost their chances of doing both over the next few weeks, now, as they’ll play Vancouver FC this weekend, allowing them to cash in the game-in-hand they have over first-place Atlético Ottawa and second-place Halifax Wanderers, before playing Ottawa in their final game of the first half of the regular season.
They win both of those matches, and first place is theirs heading into the second half, so look for them to keep up this undefeated run, one that continues to be fueled by their defensive improvement.
“Since we got together in the early days in preseason, the guys who've been around realized pretty quickly that it was a little bit of a different group, character-wise,” Bekker said. “I think we have a great mix of players who've been around the league, they know the league, they've played at other clubs, so they have that experience, but we also have a good group of young guys who are coming in and they're hungry, they're determined, and they have the right attitude.”
“They're happy to be there, they're trying to learn, and they're trying to grow - they're working on their game every single day. The guys who've been around have to just keep pushing them, and we have that good blend right now.”
