For the first time in 2025, Atlético Ottawa will host Vancouver FC at TD Place, as they get set to do battle in Canadian Premier League action this Saturday.
After their first three matchups this year were held at Willoughby Community Park, with two coming in CPL action and another in the Canadian Championship, this will mark the first of three matchups between these two sides in Ottawa over the next few weeks.
In particular, the big matchup between both in the second leg of the Canadian Championship semi-finals in mid-September looms as a massive clash that both sides will definitely get up for, but there’s plenty at stake in this one, too.
For the hosts, they want to keep themselves within touching distance of Forge in the race for the CPL Shield, as they now sit six points behind their fellow Ontario-based rivals.
Ottawa remains comfortably in second place, holding a 10-point lead over third-place Cavalry, but they want to push for that top spot, something that got all that much harder for them to do after they lost to Forge and drew Cavalry in their last two matches.
With a matchup vs. Forge looming at the end of September, they’d love to have narrowed the gap between them by then, and the best way to do that is to pick up maximum points in all of their matches, starting with this one.
“We need to try to be cleaner in our behaviour and to work more on the details we need to arrive at this part of the season,” Atlético Ottawa head coach, Diego Mejía, said this week. “This is the best part of the season, one that all the players want to play in.”
“If someone told me before this year, we’d have this amount of points at this part of the season, for sure, I would’ve taken it. So right now, we have all the energy to push to try to win the CPL Shield, and then to compete for the (North Star) Cup in the playoffs; I think that this team is ready to fight for everything.”
As for Vancouver, they’re just focused on steady improvement, even though they remain mathematically alive in the race for the playoffs.
After a recent 1-0 loss to Forge, they now sit 18 points behind the fifth-place Halifax Wanderers, which will be a near-impossible gap for them to overturn with just 24 points left up for grabs in their last eight matches.
Despite that, they want to finish the season strongly, as they still have plenty to play for. In particular, the big one is the Canadian Championship, where they carry a 3-1 lead over Ottawa after an impressive leg one victory.
Therefore, while they might be in tough to overturn that 18-point deficit in league play, they’ll know that finding form and picking up results will give them the momentum they feel they need to finish the job in that semi-final tie, allowing them to reach the final, with this game offering an early preview of what might await them in that mid-September trip to Ottawa for leg two.
“They're going to be flying out of the gates,” Vancouver FC’s interim head coach, Martin Nash, said this week. “I wouldn't expect anything less from them, as they're chasing down Forge in the league. For us, this is a chance to see this environment, get used to the pitch and the surroundings, so that when we go there in a couple of weeks in the (Canadian Championship), it won’t be a shock to the system.”
“We’re going to look to be defensively organized and work hard to keep creating chances against them. We can limit their chances a bit more than we did last game, so there’s room for improvement, but they're a great team. I like watching them play, I like the way they're set up, so it's going to be a great challenge for us.”
In terms of player availability, neither team has issued any new updates on their injured players, although it’s worth noting that neither side has any discipline issues to deal with in terms of suspensions.
3 THINGS TO WATCH
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Ottawa set to bring fire after recent Vancouver defeat: While what happened in that recent Canadian Championship semi-final leg one matchup between these two teams will have no bearing on the outcome of this game, one has to imagine that result will be at the forefront of both teams' minds in this game. Certainly, for Ottawa, that much is sure - they know that they’ve got a lot of work to do in leg two, and would love nothing more than to find a big victory in this game to give Vancouver a taste of what they want to bring to the table in that matchup next month. Already frustrated after dropping points in back-to-back league games, including that defeat to Forge, that just adds more motivation to the table in this game for a team that hasn’t had much of a problem getting up for matches this year - they’ve only lost three games in all competitions, after all. As for Vancouver, though, look for them to use that Canadian Championship matchup to build their confidence, as they look to inspire themselves to an important road victory. They know it won’t be easy against an Ottawa side that has made TD Place a bit of a fortress, but this is a Vancouver side that has picked up 8 of their 11 points (72.7%) on the road, as they’ve seemed to be more comfortable on the road than at home, which could play to their advantage.
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Can Vancouver keep things tidy defensively? Of course, the big challenge against Ottawa is to keep them off the scoresheet, as they continue to pace the league with 39 goals in 20 games, for an average of just under two goals a game. Because of that, Vancouver knows that they’ll have to try and keep them as quiet as possible offensively, which is no easy task for a side that has now conceded 43 goals in 20 games themselves. They’ve been much improved defensively as of late, at least in terms of the foundation they’ve employed, but they’ve continued to leak goals, as individual mistakes continue to hurt them. As a result, look for them to limit some of the damage they suffer defensively, even though they’re facing a lethal Ottawa attack that has only been kept off the board four times this year. As Nash said in his pre-match availability, one of his big goals is to keep a clean sheet in the next few weeks, something his side has only done once this season - this would be a pretty good game to double that figure.
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Will Ottawa be able to re-find TD Place form? As mentioned earlier, Ottawa have been tough to beat at TD Place, having picked up 19 points from nine home games, which is the second-best total in the league in that category - and they’re yet to lose at home, either. At the same time, given that they’ve drawn three of their last four home games, they have some things to sharpen up in this game. It gives an idea of how good they’ve been this year that a stretch where they’ve picked up only six points in four home games rings alarm bells, but that’s what distinguishes good teams from great ones - they don’t let many points slip away, period. For a team locked in a title race with a Forge side that is yet to lose in CPL play, any dropped points have loomed large lately, especially when they’ve come in the form of home draws. Because of that, Ottawa will want to get back to winning ways at home, knowing that they’ve got some big home games ahead - five of their next six games across all competitions are at TD Place, including that Canadian Championship clash vs. Vancouver and their last regular season matchup against Forge, meaning that this stretch could come to define their campaign, at least in terms of their push for the CPL Shield and Voyageurs Cup (and it certainly wouldn’t hurt their North Star Cup hopes to have a good finish to the year, either).
PROJECTED STARTING XIs
Atlético Ottawa: Ingham; Cloutier, Kozlovskiy, Duhaney-Walker; Antinoro, Castro, Aparicio, dos Santos; Rodríguez, Tabla; Salter
Vancouver FC: Irving; Dada-Luke, Campagna, Norman Jr., Enyou; Fotsing, Fry; Campbell, Mezquida, Bah; Mbongue
ALL-TIME SERIES
Ottawa wins: 6 || Vancouver wins: 2 || Draws: 2
Last meeting:
August 13, 2025 — Vancouver FC 3-1 Atlético Ottawa
KEY QUOTES
“What is my toughest work? To try to choose the best 11 to play the next matches. If I see that one player is not ready to play, because maybe he's tired mentally or he's tired physically, I need to put another one in. We’ve shown before that I haven't had many issues playing our kids. If I put a player out, he needs to be able to play. We are tired, but Forge is tired, Vancouver is tired, so if we want to be the best team this year, we need to keep pushing right until the end of the season.” – Atlético Ottawa head coach Diego Mejía
“I would like to at least get a clean sheet for the first time since I've come in - that’s something I'd like to see us do over the next few games. But I'd also like to win at least two or three of these last few games. We have the capabilities to do it, but we've got to be switched on. There's still a lot to play for, especially in the Canadian Championship, and these guys are playing to be in the shop window for next year - be it for us, or for someone else. So everyone's got something to play for here, so we’ve got to keep working hard and stay organized defensively, and take our chances in the attack.” – Vancouver FC interim head coach Martin Nash
