It felt like having a molar extracted.
Forge FC playing their first 2026 games, coming in late winter, without Alex Achinioti-Jönsson on the back half of the pitch?
The Day-One Forge defender, who said he wanted to leave a legacy in Hamilton, then proceeded to do so, has returned to Europe, the club has confirmed.
He has since signed with Raufoss Il in Norway.
Achinioti-Jönsson, captain and fellow training-session leader Kyle Bekker, and star flank player David Choinière were the only three who’d been with the club for all of its seven seasons. Tristan Borges, also an Original, spent Forge’s second season playing in Belgium but has been back ever since.
In those seven years, Forge reached the league title game the first six years, winning four times, and this year won the CPL Shield for finishing first in a remarkable season that included what was the longest undefeated streak in league history.
“It’s bittersweet,” Achinioti-Jönsson said of his decision to move on. “I’ve had a big part of my life here. But it’s also exciting, I’m at an age where maybe I can still go somewhere and have a new adventure. This was an adventure that turned out to be longer than I anticipated….I thought maybe two or three years in Hamilton and I’d take another step and move on. But that said, I definitely do not regret staying here seven years. I’m so grateful, so thankful, I did.
“It was a tough decision to make, obviously. I’ve got attached to the city and built a life here. I’ve loved being a part of this club and would have loved continuing being a part of it. But that feeling that maybe this would be the last one just kind of grew over the year. With the way things are going in my life, it was just time.”
Achinioti-Jönsson and his fiancé Brittany (née Cyr) were married on Nov. 8 in southern Greece—his mother is of Greek heritage—and they’ll start their new life in Europe.
And while change is a constant in pro sport, with Forge itself making its biggest roster turnovers in three-year cycles, having the rugged and reliable Swede on the pitch with Choinière, Borges and most pointedly, Bekker, has always been the underpainting of the Hammers’ landscape. Even in training it was most often Bekker and Achinioti-Jönsson who were almost the secondary coaches, regularly—and sometimes loudly and angrily—exhorting their teammates to maximum effort and concentration. They have been the in-uniform enforcers, even of their own work, of head coach Bobby Smyrniotis’s philosophies.
“You don’t have many players who are playing at the same club for seven years and that’s in any sport across the world,” Smyrniotis said. “It’s been an unbelievably fantastic run. He came in here a boy, he leaves a man. With everything you can experience in football: trophies; championships; big games; travelling to places he’d never thought he’d be to. We’ve played against everyone and we’ve done a great job at building the stature of this club and some of these guys—including Alex—will realize what they’ve done a little later down the road.
“I’m sure when we get a Wall of Honour here he’ll be one of the first names on it.”
Achinioti-Jönsson turned pro at the age of 18 in his native Sweden with Helsingborgs and spent four seasons with that club, including three in the top division, before his active and curious mind, and advice from his agent, compelled him to check out the new Canadian Premier League which was being created in Canada.
He not only did he arrive on the pitch here seven-plus years ago, he barely left it, even during practice. Earlier this season, he became the first player to wear a CPL kit 200 times—across all competitions—and he wore the same colour scheme through it all.
When he came off the bench for the remaining 19 minutes in a 2-0 road victory over Vancouver FC on June 15 this year, it was the first time he hadn’t started in 57 games and in the previous 56 he had played all 90 minutes. The last game he missed in his Forge career was June 24, 2023, when he had permission to travel to Europe for a close friend’s wedding.
And this is all while playing an aggressive physical game where he challenged shooters—in training as well as in games—from close range and had hundreds of screamingly hard shots pepper every part of his body.
“In 2024 he played every minute of every game,” Smyrniotis marvels. “It’s not only the quality of play, it’s the reliability of knowing you’ve got him each and every game, whether that’s to play at defender or as a midfielder. He came to us as a No. 8, he became a No. 6 after the first weeks of the season when we figured out where he best fit. After three years, he switched positions to centre back and was named the Defender of the Year at his new position. You can’t ask more from any player. I was able to challenge him and he was able to challenge us in finding his best role on the pitch.”
In 2022, when he was voted the league’s top defender, Achinioti-Jönsson was also a finalist for the CPL Player of the Year. He’s made the league’s weekly top players list several times in his career.
Earlier this year, he was one of nine foreign-born players who were recognised by the CPL for their loyalty to the new league.
They were put into a new roster category with Designated Domestic status and didn’t count against their teams’ import-player limit.
“I’ve said to myself and Bobby also said it to me: ‘You came here like a kid and you’re leaving like a man,’” Achinioti-Jönsson said before leaving the city. “I’ve grown up with the team as well. I’ve won championships, travelled to play great teams and I think I’ve played more games in Central America than any other Swedish player ever.”
And he met Brittany when he was out with the team after they’d won their second title.
“We went out and celebrated the championship,” he recalls. “It was us going to that one specific place that I met my future wife.
“So I owe Forge a lot.”
Achinioti-Jönsson says he’s still got a lot to learn about being a leader but said he has taken strong steps forward in that department being around the other Forge veterans, and Smyrniotis:
“What I’ve tried to do is lead by example. Wherever I’ve gone, I’ve always had the mindset of not giving anyone a reason to not favour me in any sort of way: with my attitude and my work rate. I try to do that to try to get other people to understand the same thing….that what you’re doing is not only for yourself it’s for the team.”
Asked to cite the greatest moment, or strongest memory, that he would take from his time in Hamilton, the Iron Man says it’s an impossible assignment: “I tried doing it earlier and, honestly, I can’t. There’s been so much stuff: so many highs that you can’t say ‘This is the best one’. Coming in here every day, the bond you create as a team and then you win championships together, it doesn’t happen that often and that creates a bond with those guys for the rest of our lives. It won’t be like we’re writing each other every day or every week but we’ll definitely be checking up on each other.”
Smyrniotis said he’ll miss his ever-ready defender but said there is always an air of inevitability to a star player’s departure.
“As a football coach, you need the Alex Achinioti-Jönssons on the pitch, that’s for sure. And you work on that because you know at some point, that comes to an end and you know you’ve got some guys creeping up who are ready to play those roles.
“Of course I’m very sad, you always are as a coach. Remember, we’ve taken every single step in this club together. We’ve seen all the highs and a few lows together. He’s part of what’s allowed me to grow as a coach as well. He’s been part of every step along the way.”