His coach calls him the computer in the middle of the field, but Alessandro Hojabrpour is also Forge FC’s metronome.

The defensive midfielder, who’s played 90 minutes in all four CPL games this season, is the tempo setter for the four-time champions, winding the rhythm up, then pulling it back, as he gauges the game’s, and his teammates’, rhythm.

“He’s a guy who reads everything, digests everything, and keeps us ticking,” Bobby Smyrniotis says of the sixth-year CPLer, who’s still only 24 years old. “He makes the good decisions. He does a lot of the simple work that goes unnoticed because it’s not the flashiest, but he makes the team go and he’s started the season really well.

“He’s the guy who slows the game down when it needs to be slowed down, or speeds it up, he’s key to pitching points of attack. He knows where to go with the ball, something we need on the pitch the way we play in trying to keep the ball a lot.”

Hojabrpour and Terran Campbell have won three straight league championships, the last two with Forge, and the 2021 title with Pacific FC, the only CPL crown Hamilton did not win. Although he’s defence-first, Hojabrpour scored the winning, and only, goal in that 2021 final at Tim Hortons Field, then scored the winner for his new team in the 2022 final victory in Ottawa. And he scored in the 2023 league semi-final last year. So half of his six career CPL goals have come in the post-season.

“I’d say my position is just to control the game, both defensively and offensively, but I don’t go into a game preparing to score a goal,” he says, noting that both his championship-winning scores were headers off set pieces into the box.

On Saturday at 4 p.m., when the Hammers entertain Vancouver FC, the second-year side which has a pair of wins and a draw in five matches, Hojabrpour will be seeing some very familiar faces. The Eagles’ goalkeeper Callum Irving, defender Kadin Chung and seriously dangerous attacker Alejandro Díaz were all with him and Campbell at Pacific. In fact, Chung was the first player ever signed by Pacific. And he knew midfielder Vasco Fry in the Vancouver Whitecaps’ development system.

“Kadin is a really close friend,” Hojabrpour says. “He’s a couple of years older but we grew up in the Whitecap program together so knew each other, played a bit together and obviously Pacific was a great time playing together with friends, so it’ll be cool to see them on Saturday.”

Hojabrpour, who’s from Burnaby B.C., says he’s thankful to see a CPL team on the B.C. mainland and hopes it thrives so players and fans in the area have their own successful pro team to relate to.

He and Campbell left Pacific and signed in Hamilton after three years on Vancouver Island and had talked with each other about both coming here.

The midfielder’s motivation was to further his own physical skills and mental grasp of the game.

“The simple reason was I wanted to play for the best team, and this is the best team,” he said.

“We won (at Pacific), which was nice, but it was to come to the best team, to play this kind of football to just stimulate the mind more in terms of football, tactically, technically. To learn from players like Bekker, Noah, Alex. These are players that you see here every day in training rather than just seeing them once on match day playing against them. You learn a lot more.

“I’d say the biggest thing when I came here was that your mind kind of opens up to the way football is like a chess match, whereas before I never really had that idea. The greatest thing I can say is that when I watch football on TV now, I can see into the game more. It’s nice that in my playing career, I’ll be a little smarter from being here, but also in my 40s and 50s when I’m done playing and watching football, I can say, ‘Oh, I know that tactical thing they’re doing out there.’”

Smyrniotis says that the biggest step forward for Hojabrpour—who was the league’s 2021 U-21 player of the year—has been recognizing evolving situations on the pitch and knowing how to manipulate opponents by moving two or three metres one way or the other with the ball.

Vancouver won its first two games over struggling sides Valour FC and HFX Wanderers, but then lost to York United and Cavalry before rallying with an excellent second half—and a great header by Díaz —for a home draw last week against Ottawa. Both Hojabrpour and Smyrniotis say they’re a much-improved side over last year, they work hard all game and can score goals, with eight in five games.

But they’ve also surrendered eight, and Forge will continue to press the box, use the wider field to its advantage and try to convert more of the many scoring chances they’ve been creating. Last week’s 0-0 road draw at Pacific was the first time in any game this year they have not scored, but they did have chances.

And they’ll have to be careful with Díaz, who was the CPL’s Golden Boot winner in 2021 with 13 goals but had to miss the championship game because of his wedding, which he had already postponed twice. But Hojabrpour’s goal ensured the Mexican attacker added CPL champion to his resumé.

“He’s a poacher,” Smyrniotis says, meaning that as a compliment. “A guy who knows how to take good positions in the box, who’s all about movement. He doesn’t care to be involved in the play too much. Sometimes, as a striker, when you want to always be on the ball, you won’t be in the right places to score. He does a good job on that.”

Díaz is one of the reasons that Vancouver is a bit of an unorthodox team which, Smyrniotis says, can make them a little unpredictable to defend.

“He just has that ability to know where the ball’s going to be, and then finds space.” Hojabrpour agrees. “He’s a fox in the box.”