In what soccer insiders call a mature win, it was the youngest player on the pitch who got it all going.

And he was playing a brand-new position.

Khadim Kane, who won’t turn 20 until the middle of next month, scored his first professional goal to give Forge FC a 1-0 lead in the 44th minute of Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Pacific FC, a final score which wildly flattered the home team.

“It felt amazing,” Kane said after he moved from his right defensive back position into the Pacific box to finish a textbook four-touch set piece.

“It was my first time and when it happened I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a celebration planned.”

And why would he?  The net he usually concentrates on was nearly 100 metres behind him and he’s preoccupied with keeping balls out of that one.

The 6-foot-3 Kane has spent much of his soccer life as a defensive midfielder but in the continued injury absence of Elimane Cissé and with rookie Zayne Bruno ineligible Saturday because of his red card on Opening Day, Head Coach Bobby Smyrniotis gave Kane the start at right fullback.
“It was my first time ever at right back and I really have to work on the tactical part,” Kane says. “I have to see and learn how to move with the others in the back. Sometimes right now, I’m just moving.”

Forge will take it. He has quickly flattened out the learning curve and, along with the other parts of an increasingly cohesive core of defenders—Alex Achinioti-Jönsson, Dan Nimick, Marko Jevremović, Malik Owolabi-Belewu,  Rezart Rama—helped stymie the frustrated Pacific attackers. It was a frustrating evening for the Tridents who came into the season hoping for more offence but are still a work in progress…and there was no progress against a surround-sound Hamilton back wall.

It was the second time in a season which is only two weeks old, that Smyrniotis had taken a teenager and asked him to play out of position at right back and the results have reached beyond expectation. Until he was expelled against Cavalry FC, Bruno had shown extremely well and on Vancouver Island it was Kane’s turn to step in and step up.

“It’s something we discussed in pre-season,” Smyrniotis said. “Khadim had been playing quite a bit in the No. 6 (defensive midfielder) but when we were in training in Cancun we saw him in different situations playing in back, whether at central defender or as a right back, areas of the field where we thought we’d need cover with Cissé being out. And now it looks like we have an option in several different places.

“It’s important for these young guys to be flexible and play a few positions. So we have a player we know can play midfield and now we know though pre-season and this game that he can slot in and play on the back for us.

“He made the right decisions most of the time. No game is perfect but he was mature about it, he moved the ball into the right spaces at the right time. And he also kept it patient and that was important.”

While it’s early yet—26 regular-season games to go—there are some interesting dynamics emerging on this team. While Hamilton is loaded with trophy-winning veterans, younger players have been given plenty of opportunity to make their marks: even as early as Game 2 of the Champions Cup against CF Monterrey. They’ve been brought in as late substitutions for energy injection and style change or, in the case of Bruno and Kane, to start at a position that had been temporarily thinned out.

Additionally, Smyrniotis has asked his offensive players to become more aggressive defensively, and his defending players to become more aggressive in the attack.

So far, so good as the Forge has run up back-to-back clean sheets against the only two other teams who’ve ever won the CPL championship, and both of Saturday’s goals (Jönsson, a 60th-minute header) were scored by backliners. And on Kane’s goal, Jevremović took a set-piece pass from Kyle Bekker and directed it artfully to Nimick who headed it over to Kane.

“I think the coach is happy,” Kane said. “Every day in training we do set pieces..and it’s working.”

Kane was born in Senegal and began playing soccer there at the age of three before moving with his family to St. Laurent, in the northern part of Montréal. He played youth soccer for Salabery before moving to CF Montréal’s academy, graduating to senior soccer with their U-23 squad in the provincial senior league, when he was 16.

The next year he moved to Forge, signng an Exceptional Young Talent contract which has since been converted to a standard CPL player contract. He dressed for 26 Forge games that year and also spent brief time on loan  with League1 affiliate Sigma the past two seasons.

He had planned on staying in school and remaining with CF Montréal’s program but his agent suggested it would be better for his development to come to Forge, so he finished his high school on line and in the fall will begin on-line studies at CGEP (junior college).

Smyrniotis and his staff brought Kane along at a deliberate pace, allowing him to learn from the veterans around him in practice, getting him valuable game playing time and, like other youngsters before and with him, introducing him to the highest-stakes soccer in Champions  Cup. He got into the final minute of the opening game against Monterrey but played the last 19 minutes in the second leg, as he, Noah Jensen, Ben Paton and Maxime Filion injected new energy into a game, and series, which was already decided.

“Against a big team like that, it was just amazing,” Kane recalls. “I don’t even know how to describe it.

“I was 17 when I played my first game here and we had good players like Béni Badibanga, Abou Sissoko and Garven (Metusala). Those guys helped me with my development. Now I’m feeling more mature.”

He’s also on the national team’s radar. He was called up to Canada’s U-20 team last July and played two games in the Concacaf championship tournament. Because he hasn’t played senior internationally he’s still eligible to choose Senegal or Canada should either come looking. And his performance in the CPL so far has not hurt his chances.

While Smyrniotis says Kane has a fleetness to him which allows him to succeed on vertical runs, and also cut into the middle to add a little unanticipated flavour to the offence, Kane himself says “I’m not fast. But I’m not slow.”

As a young player he was a centre back then shifted to defensive midfielder at the age of 15 with CF Montréal, “so I have a defensive thing in me. But I just want to play. I don’t care where I’m playing.”

Smyrniotis is gratified to see a young player who’s worked hard in practice get rewarded with something as significant as his first goal as a pro. That kind of positive reinforcement tends to increase a player’s confidence.

“The biggest thing with him is that his defensive play is excellent,” Smyrniotis said. “His tackling ability, his ability to win the ball. That comes a lot from playing as a 6. He makes sure things don’t get behind us. There were a few moments when Pacific was getting close but all harm was taken away with him making just a simple interception or a simple tackle and getting us the ball back. And then making the right decision in putting the ball at the right person’s feet to get us going.

“Two weeks in a row we’ve asked a young guy to take a new position on the field and I thought he was excellent at executing that.”

Kane was all smiles as the Hammers returned to training Monday, which was two years to the day after he signed his first Forge contract.

“I’m very happy to be here,” he said.  “Day by day, I enjoy life.”