The formula fuelling Atlético Ottawa’s 2025 season has been quite simple: they’ve been led by the dynamic attacking trio of Sam Salter, David Rodríguez and Ballou Tabla, who have been excellent all year long.
Their individual numbers speak for themselves — Salter finished 2025 with a league-record 19 goals to go along with four assists, while Rodríguez chipped in with nine goals and nine assists, and Tabla had 11 goals and four assists.
Thanks to that, Ottawa were able to score a league-record 54 regular season goals, as they rode that offensive dominance to a second-place finish in the league, before taking down CPL Shield winners Forge in the Championship Semifinal to kick off the Playoffs.
Now, they’ll look to cap off 2025 with a trophy, as they get set to take on Cavalry in the CPL Final, which will be held at TD Place on Sunday, Nov. 9 (5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT).
Yet, while it’s expected that Ottawa’s attackers will steal the show in that final, there’s one player who will be pivotal to any success that his team has on the day, and that’s midfielder Manny Aparicio. He's one of two Ottawa players who enter this final having already won the North Star Cup (the other being Aboubacar Sissoko).
Against a Cavalry side filled with players who lifted the 2024 North Star Cup, the experience Aparicio will bring to the table will be quite valuable, as he played a big role on the Pacific FC side that won the 2021 championship.
Certainly, he flexed that experience in Ottawa’s win over Forge in the Championship Semifinal. He ended up assisting the winning goal to cap off an excellent individual performance, finding Salter with a great cross into the box to seal a 2-1 win.
For those who have watched Ottawa all season long, though, that was unsurprising to see, as Aparicio has quietly been the heartbeat of this Atlético side with his play in midfield, bringing the sort of balance that this team needs to play the aggressive style they employ.
Without the energy that Aparicio brings in midfield, Ottawa would lack vital protection at the back, but also wouldn’t be able to funnel the ball forward to their elite attackers.
Certainly, his peers have recognized what he does — he was one of the 10 finalists for the CPL’s Players' Player of the Year award, which is voted on by fellow CPL players, giving an idea of how they felt about playing against him.
It’s a tireless role, no doubt, but it’s perfect for Aparicio, who has a motor that never seems to stop running, even despite playing nearly 3,000 minutes across all competitions.
No doubt, some of his best work continues to be on the offensive side of his game, as he had a goal and five assists in 28 regular season appearances, but it can’t be understated how important his workrate is to his team’s success.
While it’s easy to look at the numbers put up by Ottawa’s front three and suggest they’ve been the driving force behind the team’s lofty offensive numbers, the reality is that the team benefits from an approach that often sees them attack with six, seven and sometimes even eight players. They tend to overwhelm opponents with the constant overloads they create all over the pitch, leading to a higher volume of chances for their front three.
Deployed in a 3-4-2-1 that has remained unchanged all year long, their two no. 10s, Tabla and Rodríguez, roam underneath Salter, allowing the wing-backs — usually Gabriel Antinoro and Kevin dos Santos — to overlap and provide width in the attack.
The big difference-maker, though, is the work done by Aparicio and Juan Castro in midfield. Aparicio tends to jump up in the attack and operate like a box-to-box no. 8, while Castro tends to set the tempo as more of a deep-lying, offensive quarterback.
To that point, look at Aparicio’s heatmap from this season, which gives an idea of the sort of ground he covers in attack. It’s not uncommon to see him drop deep to get on the ball and launch attacks like a no. 6, before springing forward into the final third to help finish attacking actions like a no. 10, making him a true box-to-box no. 8, and not just one that crashes the box to complete attacks.
As a result, he unsurprisingly was second in the league in passes attempted with 1,799, including a league-high 941 passes attempted in the opponent’s half, just giving an idea of how much he got on the ball as a tempo-setting midfielder.
Yet, what distinguishes Aparicio from a typical high-volume passer, who statistically might complete a higher number of those passes with most of them being safer, lateral passes, is that Aparicio tends to gamble with the balls that he played. He completed 87 per cent of his passes, which is good, but not typical of a player who has his sort of passing volume.
The trade-off, though, is that those riskier passes tend to unlock dangerous attacking opportunities for his teammates. Not only did Aparicio complete a league-high 267 passes into the final third, but he created 32 chances (11th-most in the league), including 12 big chances (third-most in the league), allowing him to generate those five assists (sixth-most in the league).
Considering that Aparicio wasn’t even the main creator on his team — that was Rodríguez, who led the league in assists, chances created (67), and big chances created (18) — it almost makes his numbers look more impressive when considering the role he played in both his team’s build-up and defensively, as he had the passing profile of a no. 6 but the creative output of a no. 10.
What that shows, though, is Aparicio’s role in this team’s attack, as he has an impact on all phases of the play. In a sense, he’s the team’s answer to someone like Luka Modrić, who has revolutionized modern soccer as a box-to-box no. 8 who has shown to have the attributes of a no. 10 and a no. 6. As seen above, that sounds an awful lot like Aparicio.
“When a coach comes in and says he wants to keep the ball, and he wants me and the midfielders to be the centre point of that, it's what you'd love to hear as a midfielder,” Aparicio said earlier this season. “You want to be on the ball, you want to get touches, you want to make passes and help your teammates go forward.”
To that point, he’s not just making an impact on the ball, as his defensive numbers are not bad at all, either.
Defensively, he attempted 78 tackles (second in the league), winning 47 of them (third-most in the league), while also making 38 interceptions (second-most), 152 recoveries (second) and winning 158 duels (third), showing that he was arguably just as good defensively as he was in attack.
Considering the amount of running he has to do on the ball, that’s no small feat, as it would’ve been more than understandable for him to sacrifice a bit of his defensive play to help save energy for the attack — as top offensive players can sometimes be guilty of doing.
But that’s not Aparicio, who seems to give just as much defensively as he does offensively.
It’s important to note that those numbers came despite Ottawa holding an average of 57.6 per cent of possession in games, too, which makes it impressive that he was among the best in the league at racking up defensive actions, considering that his team defended a lot less than other sides.
When considering that, and the numbers that Ottawa sends forward in attack, that makes Aparicio’s defensive output stand out, as he often had to put out big fires for his team in the rare moments they lost the ball, helping them concede just 28 goals in 28 games.
Because of that, make sure to keep an eye on Aparicio in this Final, as he could have a pivotal role to play on both sides of the ball. Against a dangerous Cavalry side that is lethal up front but solid at the back, Aparicio will have a lot to do on both sides of the ball if his team are to lift their first North Star Cup.
He’s proven capable of stepping up and doing that work all year long, and he’ll look to cap off an excellent campaign with a good performance in this final, emptying the tank one last time.
