Make no mistake, this is a big one. A really big one.

Dyed-in-the-wool soccer supporters need no introduction to Concacaf Champions Cup –many of them are already buying tickets for holiday-season gift giving—but casual fans may not fully understand the significance and impact of the tournament in which Forge FC will make its third appearance this winter.

The top 29 club teams from leagues in the 41 countries overseen by Concacaf —one of six continental governing bodies in FIFA, soccer’s global organizing body—qualify for the tournament, which has had many formats in its 60-year history.

The eventual survivor of the tournament qualifies for soccer’s world club championships—known every fourth year, starting in 2025, as the Club World Cup and as the Intercontinental Cup in all other years—and will play against the winners from the FIFA’s other five regions. The last five club world champions were teams you just may have heard about: Manchester City, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern Munich and Liverpool. Pretty elite company.

Forge begins Cup play with a home game at Tim Hortons Field during one of two “windows” which will be determined by a televised draw in December: hosting in either the first week of February, or two weeks later. That match will be followed by a game in the home stadium of their first-round opponent, which won’t be determined until another draw later in December.

In 2022, Forge became the first CPL team ever to make it into the Champions Cup (then called Champions League), after winning a string of international matches in a long play-in tournament. After the qualifying process was reconfigured to embrace the CPL regular season and playoff champions, the Hammers were back again in 2023, losing to Cruz Azul 4-1 on aggregate, and earlier this year, losing 5-2 to Chivas.

While playing February football—with a training camp that begins in January—comes two months before the CPL regular season opens, qualifying for Cup play has always been important to the organization, top to bottom.

“Champions Cup gives you that extra piece that you’re looking forward to,” says Forge FC Sporting Director and Head Coach Bobby Smyrniotis. “You look at our 2023 season when we weren’t in any international competitions for the first time in our history because they were restructuring everything at Concacaf….and it didn’t give us that extra stimulus.

“Although you start the year early, you’ve got this challenge in front of you and it’s something players look forward to. It gives you a good start to the season: and it gives confidence that you can carry into the regular season.”

Champions Cup head-to-head matchups are set by international rankings. Forge, as one of the lower seeds, has 11 potential first-round opponents, and there are some intriguing teams who could be making their way to Hamilton in February.  The pot from which the Hammers’ foe will be drawn includes five legendary powerhouse Mexican sides: UANL Tigres, Pumas UNAM (which has a 70,000-seat stadium) Monterrey (from whom Forge star Daniel Parra is on loan) and two very familiar historic forces, Chivas and Cruz Azul. There are also six MLS teams in the mix, including Inter Miami, where Lionel Messi plays, LA FC, LA Galaxy, Real Salt Lake and FC Cincinnati. The sixth MLS side in the opposition pot will be determined by the results of the MLS championship, which is down to its final four teams.

Champions Cup is by far the most important club competition in Concacaf, the region encompassing North and Central America and the Caribbean. It’s a head-to-head elimination event with a home-and-away leg in each of the four rounds leading to the final two survivors, who will play a one-game title match on June 1. The winner of each matchup advances to the next round, the loser is out of the competition.

There are strong financial benefits as the winner of the tournament receives over $5 million, and each game played also results in extra income for a franchise from Concacaf and from the live gate.

Most teams the Forge could face in this tournament have payrolls that are at least 10 times higher than the Canadian Premier League’s strict $1.212 million salary cap.

Five teams –champions of the MLS, Liga Mx, Caribbean Cup, Central American Cup and Leagues Cup— earn a direct bye into the round of 16, while the other 22 go head-to-head in two-leg home-and-away elimination series to determine the remaining 11 round-of-16 qualifier.

The Canadian Premier League now has two automatic berths in the Cup; the champions of the regular season (this year, Forge) and of the playoffs (Cavalry FC), and could also qualify a third team if it were to win the Canadian Championship (that berth this year goes to Vancouver Whitecaps of the MLS).

“We put in two excellent performances across both games against Chivas,” Smyrniotis said of last February’s Champions Cup kickoff to an outstanding 2024 Forge overall campaign.

“We created opportunities.

“It’s not something that’s new to us. Year One you’re happy to be there, it’s a learning experience, second time around you want to put in a good performance, and as I said to a lot of guys, in Year Three this competition will be about playing four games. We have to set those markers for ourselves.

“We can’t be discussing that it’s a great thing just to be playing at the Azteca (Mexico’s most-revered stadium) and those kinds of things. Now it’s about giving ourselves the best chance to win round one. The financial commitment is important and it’s important for the players as well, giving them exposure everywhere.

“Whoever it is, our opponents will be difficult so we have to figure out what we can do to get another two games in this competition and that’s the challenge we put upon ourselves every year: to get better.”