It might be a domestic league — the domestic league—but the team that has defined it since its inception recognizes that the CPL is a reflection of the international flavour of its country and its sport.
So when Forge FC plays host to Vancouver FC on Friday (7 p.m.) in the battle for second place, it’s International Night at Tim Hortons Field.
The aim is to highlight Hamilton’s diversity and fans are encouraged to wear the colours of their own country of origin; there will be a food drive for the Good Shepherd food bank, centring on the need for a wider variety of donations –such as culture-specific sauces and spices—than might normally be found in a food drive; and there will be numerous different international food vendors on site.
As well, Forge will honour Team Hamilton ahead of the Children’s International Games which open July 15, in Leon, Mexico; the club will celebrate the different cultures in the city and on the Forge roster, and there will be a post-match viewing party on the Club level for Canada vs. Venezuela in the Copa America quarter-finals.
“It’s indicative of all of us, it’s who we are,” Head Coach and Sporting Director Bobby Smyrniotis said of multiculturalism. “One, it makes this country great, and two, it’s what makes this sport beautiful. You’ve got players with all kinds of backgrounds, Canadians with different backgrounds from their parents’ heritage. And we have our foreign players as well. Everyone comes together for the love of this game.”
The Forge has Canadian-born players like Garven Metusala who are eligible to play internationally for their family’s homeland (in his case, Haiti), and their formal “imports” on the roster come from Sweden, Ghana, Congo Democratic Republic, Senegal, Czechia, England and Mexico.
“I was excited to see it’s International Night,” says attacker Nana Ampomah who’s from Ghana. “I see it when I walk around Hamilton. It’s one of the things I like about Canada. We can’t wait to celebrate it.
“It’s always nice to know different cultures and how different people act and what they believe in so you can know how to deal with them. I feel like we’re all the same, so it’s important to learn more cultures and know more about people.”
Two-way defender Daniel Parra of Mexico, echoes his teammates’ observations: “Every time I go out into the city I notice that it’s a country with a lot of different cultures. It’s good for everybody. You can learn about other cultures and learn and respect the ways of thinking of other people.”
Smyrniotis himself was born in Canada to parents who immigrated from Greece. When he was coaching in the academy of Greek side Olympiacos 20 years ago, he was required to do mandatory military service for six months and trained at a local base.
On the field, the Hammers will be facing a Vancouver team which got off to a hot start, then stalled a bit but got back on the rails with a 2-1 victory last week against Pacific right on Vancouver Island, the night before Forge’s entertaining, but ultimately disappointing, 4-3 loss in Ottawa.
Vancouver sits second in the league with 16 points from 12 games, one more than third-place Forge which has taken 17 points from 11 games. But although Vancouver has scored 16 goals, they’ve also surrendered 19. They did come into Tim Hortons Field on May 18, take a 2-0 lead, and hang on for a 2-1 win over Hamilton.
“They’re a resilient team,” Smyrniotis said. “They’re a team that morphs from game to game and are defensively sound. A lot of times, they’re looking to take advantage of slight opportunities in the game. If you look at our first game, it’s the only game we lost at home, we made a bad mistake in the first three minutes of the game, it cost us a goal and they scored an Olimpico (Vasco Fry). We’ve seen that before. But on the flip side, it was probably one of our best-attacking output games, from the raw numbers. That’s the positive you take from there.
“They’re a team that’s working hard, they’re experienced. In the off-season, they got a lot of players with experience in this league and made their team much older to be able to battle and compete in this league.”
One of those players—and this dovetails nicely with International Night—is striker Alejandro “Wero” Diaz, a native of Mexico. Vancouver announced yesterday that they’ve extended the loan of Diaz from Norway Division I side Sognal through next June. He has four goals in a dozen CPL matches this year, tied with New Zealander Moses Dyer for the team lead. Diaz is second all-time in CPL scoring with 31 goals, six back of injured Forge striker Terran Campbell. Diaz won the 2022 CPL Golden Boot, with 13 goals for Pacific FC.
Forge will have to pay attention to that attacking threat and take care of their own end a little bit more crisply on Friday night. With the three goals in Ottawa—a couple of them off glaring Atlético mistakes—plus two the week before in a draw with Halifax Wanderers, they know they can score.
“It’s what we’ve been talking about,” Smyrtniotis said today. “We’re scoring goals but we know to win games and to win championships it’s the keeping of the ball out of your net that’s the most important thing.
“We pride ourselves on playing an attacking style of football but the base to all that is making sure we’re defensively rigid, defensively sound. We’ve got to make sure that that’s there to give us the opportunity to keep on moving.”
Now seven points back of first-place Ottawa, the Hammers need to extract three points from this game to stay close to the top and also to elevate themselves from the bunch-up which currently sees second and sixth place separated by only four points.