For the second time already in 2025, Pacific is getting set to host Forge at Starlight Stadium, as they welcome the defending CPL Shield winners to Langford on Saturday.
This time, however, Pacific would like a much better outcome than the one they suffered in that last meeting, which came on April 12th, as Forge came to Vancouver Island in the second week of the CPL season and left with a key 2-0 victory.
Now, onto the second round of matches this season, it’s a crucial period for several teams across the league, especially for Pacific.
One of four teams to play seven games already, they sit in fifth place in the table, having won two games, drawn one and lost four of their first seven matches.
Yet, their wins have come against the bottom two teams so far, Valour and York United, and their draw came against sixth-place Vancouver, so Pacific is still looking for a marquee result against any of the top four teams, who all beat them during that first round.
Because of that, look for them to try and get a win against Forge, who are tied for third-place with Cavalry, and are one of just two undefeated teams remaining in the CPL, along with Atlético Ottawa. With a win, Pacific can leap into a tie with Forge, who do have a game-in-hand, showing that while Pacific’s slow start has pushed them down the table, they still sit in a good position, provided they can now go on a bit of a run over the next few games.
“The guys have done a great job of moving on; they’ve been training well and bringing more competitiveness to our day in and day out,” Pacific’s head coach, James Merriman, said this week. “Of course, we know Forge is a big game, but for us right now, we need consistency in our performances, our spirit, our competitiveness and our togetherness, all of those things. That's what we've been focusing on, and what we're going to bring alive on Saturday.”
As for Forge, despite their start, they know they’ve got another gear to hit. While they’re yet to lose, they’ve drawn four of their six games, with all of those draws coming in consecutive matches after they won their first two games of the season.
What that means is Forge actually haven’t won a CPL game since that Pacific game on April 12th, where they followed up a week one victory vs. Cavalry FC with that 2-0 victory at Starlight Stadium.
The good news for Forge? They’ve picked up a couple of positive results in the Canadian Championship in that span, eliminating the Halifax Wanderers with a 3-1 in the preliminary round before picking up a big 1-0 win vs. CF Montréal in the first leg of their quarter-final tie in midweek.
Therefore, while they might be tired from that Montréal match, they feel it can give them a big boost, in particular, helping them build some momentum in CPL play.
“We've been playing some good football, and then, in that midweek game, we got a good win by playing our brand of football, and I think that always helps the team,” Forge’s head coach, Bobby Smyrniotis, said. “Now, we feel good in a week, especially when you have a quick turnaround and you have this trip ahead of you, heading out to Pacific. The vibes are good in the team, but like I always say, you're only as good as your next one, and the next one is Pacific.”
In terms of roster availability, Forge noted that nothing changed from the Montréal game, where they were missing Tristan Borges, David Choinière, Alessandro Hojabrpour and Elimane Cissé. Meanwhile, Pacific are set to welcome back Sean Young and Daniel de Pauli from injuries, but will be missing Christian Greco-Taylor after he was sent off for earning two yellow cards vs. Cavalry, and will be without the injured Ronan Kratt and Juan Quintana for the rest of the season.
Photo Credit: Pacific FC/Sheldon Mack
3 THINGS TO WATCH
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Pacific looking for consistency: Through seven games, Pacific’s season has followed an interesting pattern - every time they’ve picked up a positive result, they’ve been unable to carry that momentum over to the next game, as they’ve lost the next game after each of their two wins and their one draw. On the flipside, they’ve done a good job of responding to losses - other than back-to-back losses to the Halifax Wanderers and Atlético Ottawa in April, they’ve done a good job of ensuring the defeats don’t pile up. Now, however, they face their stiffest test in terms of responding to adversity, as they’re coming off a 4-0 drubbing against Cavalry last weekend. Going from a tough road game vs. the defending North Star Cup champions into a home clash against the defending CPL Shield winners isn’t an easy transition, but perhaps this is what Pacific needs. They’ve shown this year that they can give any team a tough time when they’re on their game, but the biggest thing that has hurt them is that they’ve let certain games get away from them. In each of their four losses, they were never down by more than a goal by half time, and were even up a goal on one occasion, but they’ve ended up losing all of those games by multiple goals after collapsing in the second half. Yet, that shows why the onus isn’t necessarily on Pacific to adjust their performances, but to instead find a way to maintain a solid level throughout the match, and not let these games get away from them as they have on a few occasions.
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Can Forge find more possession after midweek win: While Forge’s win over Montréal in midweek stood out for many reasons, the biggest might’ve been the way they won, as they held a lot of the ball and eventually broke down Montréal by wearing them down on the ball. Typically, that’s not uncommon to see from Forge, who are one of the best teams on the ball in the CPL, but in past matches against Montréal, they’ve had to adapt their game to play a bit more directly. Ironically, they’ve not been as ball-dominant as usual in CPL play this year - they’re still third in possession in the CPL, but are averaging just 50.7% of possession, which will feel low by their standards. Not only that, but they’re shooting the ball a lot less, sitting with just 60 shots in six games, averaging just 10 shots a match. On the flipside, they’ve been efficient with their lack of shots and possession, sitting second in xG with 10.69 and third in non-penalty xG with 9.11 despite playing one less match than half of the league. At the same time, one can only wonder how many more chances they’d be creating if they were holding the ball and shooting more, so look for them to try and find that side of their game again, even if it won’t be easy to do on the narrower Starlight Stadium pitch.
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Will set pieces be a key decider again? When Forge picked up their win vs. Pacific in April, the big thing that stood out was that they scored both of their goals on set-pieces, as they did well to catch Pacific out on a couple of set plays. Since then, however, they haven’t scored on another set-piece, which is something to watch. Why? Because Pacific’s woes in that department have continued, with their loss to Cavalry last weekend being another example of what that can look like - all four of their goals came from such situations, with Cavalry scoring two penalties, and chipping in with a goal off a corner and a free kick. Plus, for good measure, their two penalties were won off set-pieces, too, showing how much they dominated those scenarios. As a result, look for Pacific to avoid giving up much from those scenarios in these games, especially given what Forge did in their last visit to Starlight Stadium.
PROJECTED STARTING XIs
Pacific: Anchor; Chung, Machado, Ndom, Lajeunesse; Keshavarz, Browning Lagerfeldt; Heard, Bustos, Zanatta; Montejano
Forge: Koleilat; Rama, Nimick, Owolabi-Belewu, Jevremović; Achinioti-Jönsson, Bekker; Ampomah, Jensen, Babouli; Wright
ALL-TIME SERIES
Pacific wins: 5 || Forge wins: 15 || Draws: 3
Last meeting:
Apr. 12, 2025 — Pacific FC 0-2 Forge FC
KEY QUOTES
“We’re still working towards that consistency from the beginning to the end of matches, all together, playing in the same way. If we concede, we don't want to drop, but I think a couple of times now we’ve conceded a goal, and we’ve dropped our heads, so that can't happen. Maybe that’s because of the expectations we put on ourselves at the very beginning, and some things didn’t go your way, and, all of a sudden, you start to get carried away. But this has been a really good week, the team has come together, and now we just need to build that consistency in our performances.” -- Pacific FC head coach James Merriman
“At moments, we've been near 50% (of what we can do), so the Montréal game was a good win, and it’s good because when you're missing a lot of excellent players, that's important, because in all these years, one thing I know is that depth plays a big role in what you do long term in this league, especially if you want to make a good run in cup competitions. We're going to need different players to step up - be it a lot of the guys that we've seen, and even some of the guys maybe we haven't even seen a lot of yet; we know that they're going to play a key role as well.” -- Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis