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Herdman, Cavalry FC eyeing Concacaf upset vs. Pumas: ‘We want to win it all’

Time moves quickly in football, but rarely as quickly as it did for Jay Herdman in 2024.

At the beginning of last April, 10 months ago, he had not yet made his senior professional debut, his resume featuring less than 30 total appearances in MLS NEXT Pro with the Vancouver Whitecaps 2.

Fast forward just eight months from there, however, and Herdman’s career has taken quite the leap forward. In that span, not only did he turn 20 years old, but he: made his debut with the Whitecaps’ first team in Major League Soccer, competed for New Zealand at the Olympics, moved to Cavalry FC on loan, broke into their starting lineup, won a Canadian Premier League championship, and signed a new permanent deal to stay at Cavalry.

When the New Zealand-born, Vancouver-raised midfielder was named to the starting XI for the CPL Final at ATCO Field in November, it was to make just his fifth professional start.

After arriving in Calgary in September, Herdman impressed Tommy Wheeldon Jr. and his staff quickly enough that by the time October rolled around, he was a fixture in the team sheet. Herdman started each of Cavalry’s last five matches of the year, including both playoff games.

As he prepared for that CPL Final though, Herdman wasn’t quite as nervous as most 20-year-olds would be ahead of such a massive game coming so early in his professional career.

“I remember Tommy saying to me before the [final], ‘You’ve played in a lot of big games, just use what you know and you’ll do fine,'” Herdman recalled. “All the experiences I’ve had at the age of 20 helped me a lot; I wasn’t too nervous, I was more excited than anything.”

About a month and a half before he came to Cavalry, Herdman was in Paris, where he appeared in all three of New Zealand’s group stage matches at the Olympic Games. He helped them to a win over Guinea before playing in defeats against tough opponents the United States and France. The latter, a matchup with the host country, was played before a partisan crowd of 45,790 at the Stade de Marseille.

By comparison, then, the CPL Final was quite manageable. Playing on the left wing, Herdman was a key figure in Cavalry’s attacking dominance in the first half en route to their triumph over Forge FC.

Jay Herdman during the 2024 CPL Final.

Now, a couple more months after lifting the North Star Cup, Herdman and his Cavalry teammates are back on the pitch preparing for another monumental game.

As CPL champions, they’ll be kicking off their 2025 campaign in the Concacaf Champions Cup, where they have a first-round date with historic Mexican giants Pumas UNAM.

This will arguably be the highest level of footballing quality Herdman has yet encountered, although he did get a firsthand look at the Mexican game last year, when he was on the bench for the Whitecaps’ first Concacaf match of 2024 against Tigres — ironically, at the same Starlight Stadium in B.C. where Cavalry begin their journey.

The difference, however, is that Herdman will almost certainly play a role on the pitch this time.

Cavalry’s internal expectations are high, though; after making their Champions Cup debut last year against Orlando City, they enter this year’s tournament with serious ambition.

“We believe in ourselves a lot more,” Herdman said. “Tommy wants to get after this game; we’re not just coming so we can say we’ve been in another Concacaf Champions Cup game. We want to go and we want to win it all. Going in with that mindset, I think we’re going to do quite well.

“We’re going to get after this one. Since I’ve been here, all the talk’s been about trying to win the whole [tournament]. We’re not going into this game with a mindset just to have the cool experience of playing in Concacaf. We want to get after this game and we want to win.”

Herdman explained that the confidence comes largely from the momentum Cavalry built at the end of 2025. They went undefeated in their last eight matches, losing one of their last 15. In fact, Herdman has not yet tasted defeat in a Cavalry uniform.

The key, he says, will be understanding Pumas and how they want to play, and perhaps catching them by surprise in a matchup the Liga MX side might underestimate.

“We’re ready to take the game to them, instead of them taking the game to us,” Herdman said. “Hopefully we can change how the game is supposed to go. We’re the underdog in this game, so if we can flip it on them I don’t think they’ll be expecting it too much. It’s just being ruthless, in defence and attack as well.”

The Cavs will have their work cut out for them, especially when they travel to Mexico City and the Estadio Olímpico Universitario.

In the last year, however, Cavalry have shown they can handle the pressure of a big stage.


The 2025 Concacaf Champions Cup begins Tuesday. Feb. 4. Canadian Premier League clubs Forge FC and Cavalry FC will be taking on Mexican sides CF Monterrey and Pumas UNAM, respectively, with their matchups beginning Feb. 5 and 6.

Canadian viewers can watch the tournament live on OneSoccer. For more information on the Concacaf Champions Cup, click here, and for further coverage of the tournament at CanPL.ca, click here.