Welcome to As It Stands. At the start of each week through the end of the season, we’ll bring you this easy-to-digest wrap-up of everything you need to know from the weekend that was in the Canadian Premier League, and keep tabs on how each team is progressing in its hunt for silverware.

Four matches, nine goals, five red cards and 11 points handed out: matchweek 26 in the Canadian Premier League was quite the roller coaster.

Forge FC are officially going to lift the CPL Shield as regular season title winners next Saturday, Oct. 12, having clinched first place this weekend with a 1-0 win over Valour FC in Winnipeg. They’ve now won a fifth trophy in six years, and will return to the Concacaf Champions Cup in 2025 thanks to their outstanding form this season.

That’s not all that happened this week, though. Saturday afternoon saw Halifax Wanderers and Vancouver FC go toe-to-toe in a scrappy game, where both sides ended with 10 men. Halifax set a CPL record with 26 shot attempts, and Callum Irving tied a CPL record with 11 saves, but the very last attempt of the match was a Vitor Dias goal which snatched a 1-1 draw after Vancouver had led since the early second half.

Later that afternoon, Cavalry FC trounced Pacific FC, who lost their goalkeeper Emil Gazdov to a third-minute red card (and Kevin Ceceri to one in the 84th minute). Tobias Warschewski scored twice en route to a 4-1 away win for the Cavs, who jumped into second place.

Finally on Sunday, York United and Atlético Ottawa got a little heated in their match, and Atleti’s Liberman Torres was sent off in the first half. Remaining patient with the man advantage, York finally broke through with 20 minutes to play as 16-year-old Shola Jimoh scored his third of the season to secure his side’s 1-0 win.

We had a little bit of movement in the table, but it remains close among the bottom four:

The biggest moves in the table this week are Cavalry jumping into second, and Vancouver overtaking Pacific — just barely though, thanks to their better head-to-head record against their B.C. rivals.

Both those positions will be heavily contested in the final two weeks of the year; Ottawa (and, for that matter, York United) would both love to claw their way into second and have a chance to host the final, though neither of them play Cavalry again so they’d need some external help.

Meanwhile, that race for the fifth and final playoff spot is incredibly tight and could go to any of those bottom four teams. Vancouver nearly gave themselves some more breathing space, but Halifax’s late equalizer kept the Wanderers close. Meanwhile, Valour had an outstanding chance to take fifth for themselves, but they were unable to get the job done against Forge.

Speaking of Forge, shoutout (again) to their ex-striker Kwasi Poku, who last week earned his first Canadian men’s national team call-up. He’s the 11th player to get called up either during or after time spent in the CPL.

 Monday Reading

If the playoffs started today…

With the Cavs in second now, we could be in line for a rematch of last year’s CPL Final on the first weekend of the playoffs. We know for sure that Forge will host that qualifying semi-final against the second-place side, and the club announced this week that game will be played Sunday, Oct. 27 at 4 p.m. ET in Hamilton.

Here’s how the rest of it would shake out, if the playoffs were starting this week:

Awards Watch

After his 11-save performance against Halifax, which followed up an outstanding clean sheet in Calgary, it’s hard not to think Vancouver’s Callum Irving belongs in the Goalkeeper of the Year conversation. He leads the league in saves (by a long way) and has saved two penalties this year, and his coach Afshin Ghotbi said on Saturday that it seems Irving just keeps getting better.

In the Best U-21 Canadian category, is there a chance Shola Jimoh has done enough to earn some buzz? He’s got three goals for York now, but he’s only made three starts and 12 total appearances. His teammate Noah Abatneh seemed a shoo-in for a nomination, but the defender missed an extended stretch — although he returned off the bench for York on Sunday.

Speaking of that York-Ottawa game, two potential Coach of the Year candidates in Benjamín Mora and Carlos González gave us a bit of a war of words in their postmatch press conferences. Certainly no shortage of entertainment value in that all-Ontario fixture these days.

That said, Bobby Smyrniotis has just coached Forge FC to another trophy. Surely he’s the front-runner to finally win his Coach of the Year award?

Breaking down the run-in

Just two weeks left. Each team has one home and one away game remaining, and every single team (except maybe Forge) has something tangible to play for in the standings at the moment.

Next weekend’s Vancouver-Valour match is huge; the Eagles could eliminate the Winnipeg side with a win, which would also go a long way toward securing their own spot in the playoffs.

Home matches are listed in bold, and away matches are listed in italics.

Forge FC	Halifax Wanderers	Atlético Ottawa	Cavalry FC
Vancouver FC	Valour FC	Pacific FC	York United

York United	Vancouver FC	Valour FC	Pacific FC
Forge FC	Cavalry FC	Atlético Ottawa	Halifax Wanderers

U-21 Minutes Update

Cavalry were the latest to pass the 2,000-minute mark, thanks in large part to Jay Herdman and Michael Harms on Saturday.

Four teams remain below the line. Forge and Ottawa shouldn’t have much trouble getting there over the last two weeks — they need 37.5 and 55.5 minutes per game, respectively.

Valour, however, need to average 82.5 (which they may find easier to hit now that Juan Pablo Sanchez is back to fitness), and Halifax, who added just 19 this week, need 149 per game.

Coming up next…

Thursday, Oct. 10

York United FC vs. Pacific FC (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT)

Saturday, Oct. 12

Forge FC vs. Atlético Ottawa (4 p.m. ET)
Cavalry FC vs. Halifax Wanderers FC (5 p.m. MT/8 p.m. AT)

Sunday, Oct. 13

Vancouver FC vs. Valour FC (2 p.m. PT/4 p.m. CT)

(Watch all games live on OneSoccer)

Photo of the Week

Shoutout to York United’s honourary captain Damon Safavi for opening the scoring at York Lions Stadium on Sunday.