2020 CPL regular season (The Island Games) — Match #1
Forge FC vs. Cavalry FC
August 13, 2019 at 8:00 p.m ET/9:00 p.m. AT
UPEI Artificial Turf Field in Charlottetown, PEI
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca

Better late than never, right?

After a lengthy delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Canadian Premier League’s regular season kicks off on Thursday as The Island Games take over Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

The first match out of the gate is a rematch of Finals 2019: Forge FC vs. Cavalry FC. The Hamilton-based club capped off a 1-0 victory in Leg 1 of the final with a 1-0 win in Calgary in Leg 2 last Nov. 2, thus winning the aggregate series 2-0 and becoming the first team to hoist the North Star Shield as CPL champions.

Times have changed, though, with both sides having lost key players this off-season (most notably Tristan Borges and Dominique Malonga) while also bringing in a number of reinforcements.

Bobby Smyrniotis and Tommy Wheeldon Jr. remain in charge, and it’ll be interesting to see how the battle between two of the league’s top tacticians plays out on Match #1 of the opening group stage of the Island Games.

What’s in store between these two heavyweights in the first match of the 202o CPL regular season?

RELATED READING: CPL regular season: The Island Games || CPL season previews for all eight teams

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Borges out, Sabak in for Forge: Identified by CanPL.ca as one of five newcomers to watch during the 2020 season, Belgian playmaker Paolo Sabak is expected to take his CPL bow in a starting role for Forge on Thursday. Sabak, 21, is a product of KRC Genk’s storied youth academy, and graduated to the senior team at age 17 when he made his debut in a side that featured Toronto FC’s Alejandro Pozuelo and Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi. Now he’s in the CPL and will help try to fill the void left by Tristan Borges, who was last year’s league MVP and Golden Ball winner. All eyes will be on the young Belgian to see if he can live up to the hype and be as a prolific goal-scorer as Borges was in 2019.

• Cavs need to replace Escalante: Cavalry enters the regular season without Jose Escalante and newcomer Richard Luca, who were left stranded in Honduras and Brazil, respectively, as COVID-19-related protocols prevented them from entering Canada. Escalante proved to be a key figure for the Cavs in 2019, as the Honduran left winger scored four goals and tallied four assists in CPL action, while also earning a reputation as one of the league’s biggest pests. Who’ll replace him in the Cavs’ starting 11 vs. Forge? Oliver Minatel, Sergio Camargo and Jordan Brown are all options, according to Wheeldon Jr.: “We know what we have up our sleeve and we can move to backup plans if the game tells us something different. We’ll (see) if it’s working and move to Plan B when needed.”

• Rustiness will be a factor: It shouldn’t be forgotten that all eight CPL clubs haven’t had what you could call a traditional pre-season ahead of The Island Games. The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on preparations, with the teams arriving in PEI this past weekend without even having the benefit of playing any exhibition games. It’s going to take time for players to jell. Forge coach Bobby Smyrniotis hit the nail on the head this week when he cautioned that, “you’ve only had the larger part of maybe two or three weeks to actually play full intra-squad games against each other…. For some teams, it may actually take a couple of games to actually hit the stride the coaches are looking for.”

WHAT BOTH SIDES ARE SAYING

“(Thursday is) a chance to finally put (last) November 2nd behind us. We had a great regular season, and a Canadian Championship, but fell at the last hurdle. We just need a game. So why not against the team that beat us in the finals?” – Tommy Wheeldon Jr, Cavalry FC coach

“I believe our first four games (over 10 days) we go with two full days in between each match. So, I think depth is a very important thing and we have to use that. You look at things on paper, I think we’re very well set up for that, but we all know that sometimes paper doesn’t mean a lot. We have to be able to go on the field and execute.” – Bobby Smyrniotis, Forge FC coach

ALL-TIME SERIES

Forge wins: 5 || Cavalry wins: 3 || Draws: 1

Previous match:
November 2, 2019 – Cavalry FC 0-1 Forge FC (Finals 2019, Leg 2)

REFEREES

Referee: Yusri Rudolf
ARs: Philippe Bettez-Quessy & Stefan Tanaka-Freundt
4th Official: Juan Marquez
Reserve Assistant Referee: Sean Hornsby