We might be in the throes of ugly weather but the Beautiful Game is only a couple of weeks away.
Forge FC is in Mexico training for a visit to Hamilton’s stadium by powerful Mexican side CF Monterrey on Wednesday, Feb. 8, for the first leg of the home-and-home opening round of Concacaf Champions Club.
Not as well-known outside their home country as the two previous legendary Mexican teams—Guadalarja and Chivas– who’ve played Champions Cup here, Monterrey has enjoyed more success than either of them in the past decade-plus
It’s a good, and certainly, rare chance to see one of the soccer world’s most prominent club teams. So here are a few items you might find interesting about Monterrey. More to follow as we approach the big game.
Steve Milton’s Forge notebook: Champions Cup opponents are in world club championships later this season; they’re also tied to 905 Derby
*While the Hammers are historically one of the busiest pro soccer teams in Canada, their first-round opponent in the Champions Cup has an even more crammed 2025 schedule.
Like Forge, CF Monterrey not only has the regular season—cleaved into a first and second half –to deal with, they have the league playoffs and the national championships.
But Los Rayados (“The Striped Ones”, named for their blue uniforms) will also compete in the Concacaf Leagues Cup in July, featuring club teams from MLS and LIGA MX. And that comes just a month after Monterrey faces three historically important sides from three different continents at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California during the Group Stage of the FIFA Club World Cup. Re-structured to be played every four years like the national-teams World Cup, the Club World Cup features 32 teams from all six FIFA regions and is the most prestigious club tournament in the world.
Monterrey qualified for the Worlds by winning the 2021 Concacaf Champions Cup and finds itself in Group E with Inter Milan, the only Italian team which has never been relegated from Serie A, 2022 Japanese champion Urawa Red Diamonds who were founded by Mitsubishi Motors, and River Plate which has won the Argentina league title a record 33 times, most recently in 2023. Monterrey’s coach Martín Demichelis coached River Plate until last July and also started his playing career there.
That’s pretty heavy company.
York United FC, Forge’s alter-ego in the CPL’s 905 Derby, has a vested interest in February’s game so club executives, and perhaps some of their fans, will make the short drive to Hamilton for the game.
Six months ago, Monterrey and the Nine Stripes created a formal partnership in which they’ll collaborate on ‘best practices’ in scouting and coaching, have York United’s technical team visit the Mexican side twice a year and allow eligible players undergo try-outs in both cities.
Monterrey’s Josué Martínez and Orlando Bortello played with the CPL side last season and while their status for 2025 hasn’t been announced yet, “We’re going to have someone from there playing with us this season,” York United’s President and General Manager Ricardo Pasquel told Hamilton Sports Group this week. “This year a couple of our youth players will be training down there. Monterrey also wants to send some of their young guys to our new League1 Ontario team in Toronto. They want those youth players to get out of Mexico for some international experience in a different culture. We’re just working out the logistics of it now.”
While the majority of Los Rayados’s roster is still made up of Mexican-born players, about half the 28-player roster listed on the website Transfer Markt were raised in other countries: Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Portugal and the U.S.
“They spent a lot of money on international players,” Pasquel said. “Even though they don’t have a fan base all over the world, every year they’re contending for the Mexican and Champions Cup championships. They’ve won the Concacaf Champions Cup five times in the last 15 years.”
*The latest 2025 compensation figures for CF Monterrey indicate a roster payroll of $28.8 million (CDN) which is about 20 times the Canadian Premier League’s salary cap.
But that was reduced slightly with the surprise transfer of American forward Brandon Vázquez back to the MLS where he had previously starred for FC Cincinnati. After just one year in Monterrey, the generally prolific scorer was moved to Austin FC for about $10 million, which means Monterrey made money on the deal, after paying more than a million less than that to sign him to a four-year deal that survived only one season.
Austin upset Monterrey, with Vázquez on the roster, in last summer’s Leagues Cup group stage.
Now a member of the US national team, Vázquez did not dress for the Americans in their 2-0 World Cup qualifying round loss in Hamilton three years ago…and now he won’t be here again.
Monterrey has scored only two goals in its opening two games of the LIGA MX Clausura (second half) but they’ve allowed only two and that’s a sign that head coach Martín Demichelis is moulding the kind of team he prefers after taking over the squad four games into the 2024-25 Apertura (first half).
Having spent significant playing time under legendary coaches Manuel Pellegrin and Pep Guardiola, Demichelis believes strongly in the short-pass possession game and is a firm rearguard and has demonstrated that in his ascending coaching career. He had the reins of Argentine giants River Plate for a couple of years before he was dismissed in July.
During the January transfer window, Monterrey signed two veteran LIGA MX defenders Mexican international Ricardo Chávez a 30-year-old who patrols the right side and 33-year-old Luis Reyes, the former Mexican international left-back who played with Atlas.
They have also added two promising 24-year-old players who can move the offence, in forward Alfonso Alvarado from León and Colombian midfielder Nelson Deossa from Pachuca.