It’s Canadian soccer’s version of the Divine Right of Kings.
Forge FC vs Cavalry FC, with something big —this time another CPL crown–on the line. Yet again.
It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were writing in this space about how freakishly often these two serial rivals have met each other in the six seasons that the Canadian Premier League has existed.
Saturday afternoon (3 p.m. ET), the Hammers will play the Cavs with the CPL title on the line. It will be the third time the final has featured these two teams, the sixth straight time the Forge have qualified for the league final—they’re making some interesting 21st-Century history by doing so—and the almost-unbelievable 32nd time that Calgary and Hamilton have faced off in games that matter over that span of six CPL years.
Yes, at eight teams, the CPL is still a small and compact league, but the mathematics involved in both the frequency of Cavalry-v-Forge, and the Forge’s ability to save their best soccer for elimination games is staggering.
Cavalry defeated Forge 1-0 right at Tim Hortons Field in the 1-v-2 semifinal on Oct. 27 to fast-track directly into this weekend’s final at ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows, while Forge was shunted to a second semifinal which they won 1-0 over a threat-filled Atlético Ottawa side two days ago at the Donut Box.
So here they are again and it’s like looking into a mirror, a year later. Last season, Cavalry finished first, and hosted the A semifinal, but Forge beat them 2-1 to earn the right to host the final, which they won, also 2-1, on Tristan Borges’ Olimpico over the Cavs, who had won their elimination semifinal by a goal over Pacific.
That result meant that both teams qualified for last February’s Concacaf Champions Cup, although each were eliminated in the opening round: Forge 5-2 on aggregate to Mexican powerhouse CD Guadalajara ; and Cavalry 6-1 to MLS’s Orlando City. And this year, because Forge won the regular season and also made the final, their finals opponent—Cavalry again—will join them as league reps in the 2025 Champions Cup.
While it was a convoluted route for both the Cavs and Hammers to get to this final—Atlético and Pacific were both legitimate contenders—there’s almost always an air of expectancy from the season’s opening kickoff that these would be the last two standing for the final kickoff.
Goals by Tobias Warschewski for Cavalry in the first semifinal, and Malik Owolabi-Belewu for Forge in Saturday’s second semifinal delivered us to this 32nd game between these two. Forge has won 14, lost 9 and tied 8, but the goal differential over nearly three dozen games is just four, favoring Forge. Most importantly, Forge has won four of the league’s first five titles, while Cavalry is searching for its first CPL championship.
“When we spoke before the semifinal two weeks ago, it was as a kudo to both our clubs, to both our teams being quite consistent for six years,” says Jelani Smith, the Forge’s Director of Soccer Operations
“We’ve been impressed with the challenges our team has faced this year, starting when we opened the season, practicing in January for Concacaf, and then the run we had in the Canadian Championships (in which they eliminated FC Montréal and only lost to Toronto FC on away goals), We’re very proud of what we’ve done…and there’s one more game.
“The boys have done a great job of prevailing: when they’d lost their starting center back from last year, Manjrekar James; (to a Costa Rican side) they lost Rezart Rama (to an Albanian side), lost who I thought was the best goalkeeper in the league in Triston Henry (to Memphis 901), and during the season you’ve lost Kwasi Poku (transferred to a Belgian team) and the guys have still thrived and managed to put together great performances.
“There are a lot of of contributing players we’ve lost stretching back to last year and even through this year where Elimane Cissé and Nana Ampomah weren’t here because of visa challenges and Béni Badibanga was injured for a bit. You’ve seen Daniel Para gone for three games (suspension). We’ve always had that next man up and kudos to Dom Samuel, for the performance he came up with this weekend.”
The Forge, the highest-scoring team in the league, ran into a goal drought after clinching the CPL Shield as first-place finishers with two games remaining. They didn’t score in the next three games, despite numerous chances, including the 1-0 playoff loss to Cavalry.
Their streak had reached 276 scoreless minutes before Owolabi-Belewu headed in Saturday’s winner off a perfect corner from Kyle Bekker.
Bekker is one of four Forge players—joining Badibanga, Tristan Borges and Ali Hojabrpour– who are among the 10 finalists for the CPL’s Players’ Player of the Year, the only league award which is decided on a players’ vote. Bobby Smyrniotis is again a finalist for the Coach of the Year, which he has never won despite being the only coach to be a finalist all six seasons. And although he’s been gone for weeks, Poku is a finalist for the Canadian U-21 Player of the Year, while ultra-dependable Alex Achinioti-Jönsson is up for Defender of the Year, which he won last season after switching positions to the back line.
And earlier today the CPL announced that of the finalists for 2024 Player of the Year—a different category than the players’ Player of the Year—three wearing orange: Bekker, Borges and Hojabrpour. The other two are York United’s Brian Wright and Golden Boot winner Tobias Warschewski, who had six goals in the last four games.
The Canadian Premier League (CPL) announced Monday that Kyle Bekker, Tristan Borges, and Alessandro Hojabrpour have been nominated for the 2024 Canadian Premier League Player of the Year award, honoring the best player during the 2024 regular season. They sit amongst five nominees alongside Cavalry FC’s Tobias Warschewski and York United FC’s Brian Wright.
With CBC broadcasting the awards ceremony Thursday night and the championship game on Saturday, local fans have a rare opportunity to watch Forge FC on over-the-air TV. This is a team which is arguably the most successful in the history of Hamilton pro sport, are well-known throughout the North and Central American soccer world and should be more celebrated in this area than they already are. Exposure on the national broadcaster should help that.
And new viewers will discover how Forge is concluding a tremendous season. A tremendous six seasons, really.
In the major professional team leagues in North America—CPL, MLS, NHL, MLB, NBA, NFL, WNBA and NWSL—there have been significant dynasties but no team other than Forge has qualified for six finals in a row in the 21st Century.
The closest have been the Golden State Warriors who were in five straight finals from 2015-19, and the Miami Heat, who got in the four years before that Warriors’ run. Otherwise in the NBA you have to go back to the Boston Celtics, who had that magnificent 10-year run of finals appearances from 1957-66.
Similar to the NBA, the NFL’s NHL’s and CFL’s longest consecutive run in the finals —respectively, 6,10, and 6 years—came in the 20th Century. The WNBA and NWSL have never had a string longer than the four that the WNBA’s Houston Comets bunched together in the inaugural seasons of 1997-2000, all championships.
Like the CPL and WNBA, Major League Soccer had one team dominate the first four years of final appearances—DC United pulled that quad in the finals from 1996-99—but they didn’t get to a fifth or a sixth in a row as Forge have done.
The last time the NHL had a team reach the Stanley Cup finals even five times in a row was from 1980-84 when the New York Islanders took four Cups, and lost the fifth to the emerging Edmonton Oilers. And the Canadiens won four of five from 1965-69 and lost the other one to the Maple Leafs (yes you read that correctly) when the NHL was even smaller than the CPL is today.
The CFL, another compact league, last had a team go to five or more Grey Cups in the six-year period of 1977 to 1982, when the Edmonton Eskimos lost in their first appearance then won a record five in a row.
In Major League Baseball, the Yankees are the only team that has reached five World Series in a row—twice: 1960-64; 1949-53—and they also were in four straight between 1998 and 2001.
In the NFL, the Cleveland Browns were in six straight title games from 1950-55, the most ever, before or after the Super Bowl era which began in 1967.
So, even taking into account that there are only eight CPL teams, the nose that the Forge has shown for the season’s finish line is remarkable.
And, as has happened in exactly half of their six appearances, they’ll face a familiar foe.