Final Score: Halifax Wanderers 1-3 Atlético Ottawa
Goalscorers: Ferrin 19′; Shaw 40′, Espejo 44′, Tissot 85′
2023 Canadian Championship
Preliminary Round

Match in a minute or less

Atlético Ottawa advanced to the Canadian Championship quarter-finals with their first-ever win in the competition on Wednesday night, beating Halifax Wanderers 3-1 at Toronto’s York Lions Stadium.

Like they did on Saturday when these clubs met in the CPL season opener, Halifax struck first in the 19th minute as former Vaughan SC star Massimo Ferrin feathered in a gorgeous free kick from the top of the box. Ottawa would find their way back soon enough, though; at minute 40, Malcolm Shaw smashed home a header from an excellent Gianni Dos Santos cross. Just moments later, defender Diego Espejo put Atleti ahead before halftime, burying a loose ball in the box.

Despite late Halifax pressure, Ottawa would put the tie to bed in the 85th minute as Maxim Tissot finished off a late counter-attack to make it 3-1 and see his side through.

Three Observations

Ottawa strike with efficient, timely attacks to erase deficit, stay in front

For a moment, it seemed as though the script was the same as Saturday’s meeting between these teams. Halifax scored early, Ottawa equalized just before halftime, and the two sides went back-and forth in a deadlock. That was not to be the case on Wednesday, though; in a phase where they might’ve been happy to sit tight and see themselves to halftime with a 1-1 scoreline, Ottawa continues to press after Malcolm Shaw’s 40th-minute equalizer.

Ruthless wasn’t necessarily a word often used to describe Atlético Ottawa’s attack in 2022, but there was a certain bite to their attack in this match that developed after they fell behind. Shaw’s goal was an excellent header off a very dangerous Gianni Dos Santos cross — an attacking element they might not have had last year — and the fact that Diego Espejo jumped forward in the box to score after Noah Verhoeven sent in a ball from wide indicates Ottawa’s improvement in getting men forward.

The aggression was somewhat short-lived from Ottawa, who managed to turn the game on its head in less than five minutes and get right back on track in their plan. Still, this is the first time under Carlos González that Atleti have won a match after trailing.

Early in the second half, González altered his defensive structure to absorb more Halifax pressure, as he put Luke Singh in at centre-back, moving right-back Miguel Acosta into midfield next to Verhoeven, Karl Ouimette to the right side of defence, and pulling Jean-Aniel Assi deeper to play as more of a wingback than a right winger. González commended the versatility of his players to allow such a change — quipping that Acosta can play anywhere from right-back to centre-back to midfield, but maybe isn’t tall enough to play in goal.

“There’s different ways of controlling a game,” González pointed out. “You can control it with the ball but you can also control it without the ball. I feel that most of the time today, in a large amount of minutes in the game, Halifax had the ball in areas that weren’t threatening areas for us.”

As they often did in 2022, Ottawa at last put the game to bed late on the counter-attack, having withstood waves of pressure. After dealing with a few crosses into the box, they caught the Wanderers with too many men upfield and Assi found an acre of open space to run forward with Halifax scrambling backward. All Assi needed to do was square it across for Maxim Tissot, who moved around goalkeeper Yann Fillion and finished well.

Halifax’s quick passing asserts midfield control but final ball eludes

Wanderers coach Patrice Gheisar said he was left scratching his head after this game, feeling his side had done enough to win. He pointed out that for Halifax to lead in both their recent games against Ottawa, but come away with no wins, is disappointing. Still, many signs from these first two games suggest Gheisar’s on to something with this club early in 2023.

The Wanderers set up slightly differently in this match to how they approached Saturday’s opener in Ottawa; this time, their backline was quite fluid, with centre-backs Mo Omar, Cristian Campagna and Daniel Nimick occasionally operating as a back three to allow left-back Riley Ferrazzo to get forward opposite Wes Timoteo on the right.

The game plan against a deep-lying Ottawa side was, perhaps surprisingly, to play through them with quick, sharp passing. Halifax played a staggering 625 passes (89.3 per cent accuracy) to Atleti’s 335 (80.6), holding 65.2 per cent possession.

One of the principles of Gheisar’s new-look Wanderers side has been getting Andre Rampersad on the ball higher up the pitch, which has been far more effective with Lorenzo Callegari playing as the holding midfielder in front of the defence. As a result, Rampersad found himself in the box more often, with license to join the attack — 21 of Rampersad’s 42 touches were in the final third, as the captain was a genuine attacking threat all evening.

Ottawa have never really been a side to play tiki-taka football through the middle of the park, but the difference in approach was especially pronounced in this match.

Consider the difference in passing maps for the two sides (thicker lines mean more passes between the two players), beginning with Halifax:

And now Ottawa, who put far more of their passes across the back four:

Ottawa put the ball in the net with greater efficiency (three goals on three shots on target, with 1.44 expected goals to Halifax’s 0.89), and ultimately did not need to open things up more in what ended up being a decisive win.

Early Bassett injury throws wrench into Ottawa gameplan

Despite the generally positive takeaways from the victory, a major concern for Ottawa will be the fitness of defending Player of the Year Ollie Bassett, who exited the game just 15 minutes in with what looked like a hamstring cramp.

Carlos González acted quickly when Bassett went down, bringing 18-year-old Gabriel Antinoro off the bench to play in midfield. The young Antinoro had a difficult task, with most of his work ultimately being on the defensive side as Halifax looked to play through the middle, but he did quite well with breaking things up — he won a team-high seven duels (out of 12), with four clearances and two tackles won, and he passed the ball with 87.5 per cent accuracy.

As mentioned, this was not necessarily a game where Ottawa were likely to command the ball in midfield, but the loss of their best midfielder made that even more difficult and forced them to go long. Carlos González admitted postmatch that the loss of Bassett did alter his gameplan and resulted in his side playing a little more conservatively than he might have liked.

“It changed quite a lot, because Ollie is an essential player for us that gives us a lot of solutions in attack and the teammates feel more comfortable with him on the field,” González said. “It was a bad loss in that moment.”

González did not have an update on Bassett after the game, saying that the club will be monitoring its star player over the next few days to assess his fitness for this weekend’s trip to Winnipeg.

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Diego Espejo, Atlético Ottawa

This was a game for Ottawa to withstand pressure, and there are few players in the CPL you’d want in your backline for such a game more than Espejo. The Spaniard won all four of his duels, with seven clearances and four interceptions — not to mention burying the winning goal with a good instinctive finish.

What’s next?

Atlético Ottawa now move on to the quarter-finals, where they’ll play Forge FC the week of May 9-11. Before this tournament continues, though, both sides will be back in action in the Canadian Premier League this Saturday, when Halifax head down the road to Hamilton to play Forge (4 p.m. ET/5 p.m. AT), and Ottawa go to Winnipeg to play Valour (6 p.m. CT/7 p.m. ET).

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