Final Score: York United FC 1-2 Cavalry FC
Goalscorers: Martínez 43′; Henry 35′, Aird 53′
Game of the 2024 season: 72
CPL match: 556

Match in a minute or less

Cavalry FC won a fourth consecutive match on Friday night, beating York United 2-1 to become just the second team to beat the Nine Stripes at York Lions Stadium this year.

Maël Henry opened the scoring for the Cavs in the first half with an outstanding strike from the top of the box, but York responded before halftime as Josué Martínez headed in a cross from Elijah Adekugbe in space.

However, the Cavs would take the lead back in the second half, as Fraser Aird finished off a counter-attacking move that saw Ali Musse and Lowell Wright moving swiftly up the pitch, giving the visitors a lead they would not relinquish.

With another win in the books, Cavalry moved up to 30 points, which puts them in third place on Friday night and just one point behind the league leaders Forge.

Three Observations

‘Great players make the game easy’: Cavalry’s quality shines through

About 20 days ago, Cavalry FC were in sixth place, below the playoff spots. After Friday’s win — their fourth in a row — they find themselves in third, and only one point back of the top.

These two sides were arguably the hottest in the Canadian Premier League heading into the match, but now that title belongs unequivocally to Cavalry, who now are looking much more like the side that won the regular season title by 13 points a year ago. In the first half of the season, they’d always been difficult to beat, but they struggled to turn draws into wins as they lacked some of the goalscoring quality they needed to put opponents away.

In the past few weeks, perhaps the biggest change for them has been that they’re finally getting healthy. Ali Musse’s start on Friday was his third appearance in a row after missing 12 league matches, and he was outstanding again on the right wing, doing a lot of work to help set up the winning goal.

Maël Henry has started all four games of this winning streak and appeared in the last seven matches, after missing the first 11 of the CPL campaign. He scored his second of the season in the first half of this one with a strike that Tommy Wheeldon Jr. suggested might be Cavalry’s best goal of the year so far.

Bradley Kamdem, who made his return from injury at the start of this winning streak, also deserves credit for his contributions on Friday, with the assist on Henry’s goal plus a lot of important work defensively.

Cavalry’s returning players have helped bolster their attack in particular, but those coming back from injury also seem to have helped elevate others who have been on the pitch all year; Fraser Aird has been great all year, but now that he’s able to combine with Musse again he’s even more effective.

Plus, a few new faces are becoming increasingly comfortable with the club; Nicolas Wähling has now made six appearances — five starts — and feels increasingly like a fixture in the starting lineup. Meanwhile, Lowell Wright got a full half of work off the bench, and a start may be drawing nearer for him because he was an excellent sparkplug, with his speed and vision helping create the second goal.

“A month ago, we were doing a lot of things right and just not getting the results,” Kamdem said postmatch. “We were able to stay strong and stick together through adversity, and now the results are showing. But we’ve been working hard and grinding for quite some time, and we’re just finally seeing the rewards. It obviously helps to have so many good players.”

He added: “Great players make the game easy. I think I have a lot of great players in front of me, and they definitely make the game a lot easier for me to find them when I’m under pressure.”

Rumours of Cavalry’s demise seem to have been greatly exaggerated; with nine games left in the regular season, they have put themselves right back in the title race and could very well defend their CPL Shield come October.

Lacklustre second half hurts York despite late opportunities

Benjamín Mora has not experienced much disappointment in the two and a half months since he’s been at York United, with just one other loss in the 11 games he’s coached.

However, he was not particularly concerned by Friday’s defeat, seeing plenty of his side’s usual good structure at times. The first half was quite good for York, who had almost 60 per cent possession and outchanced Cavalry with 0.75 expected goals to 0.1. The second half, though, was a different story, as although York actually had more of the ball then, they struggled more to get into dangerous areas and gave up spaces on the counter Cavalry could exploit.

The second Cavalry goal was an impressive piece of counter-attacking football, but it also left much to be desired from York’s defending, as they couldn’t keep up with the speed of Lowell Wright and Musse, leaving massive lanes open for them to pass into.

At the other end, York were frustrated individually; Brian Wright had plenty of moments with the ball, but Cavalry’s defenders — especially Daan Klomp, assigned to him most of the night — gave him very little breathing room.

Mora did act fairly quickly in the second half by making changes around the 70th minute, putting his team into a back four while also adding Austin Ricci into the mix so he could partner Wright in a two-striker system with Mo Babouli as a number 10 behind them. Moving Max Ferrari and Orlando Botello into traditional fullback positions in a back four, Mora said, allowed them to do more with overlapping runs and get further up the pitch.

The changes did result in some extra energy for York, but again they would find it difficult to create space toward the end after Oswaldo León was shown a second yellow card for a foul just before the 90th minute, leaving the Nine Stripes to attack with 10 men for the six minutes of stoppage time.

“We maybe couldn’t find the spaces that we wanted, but I think the second half was a lot different,” Mora said postmatch. “I think second half we didn’t do well, we didn’t have the possibilities. … We couldn’t find our good circulation, and I wanted to have the ball more and play out wide. We did two or three times, but we couldn’t be consistent, so they shaped well and they had their two opportunities and put them in the goal.”

Regardless of the result, York remained in second place on Friday night. They host first-place Forge next Friday in what could be a crucial top-of-the-table clash.

Scrappy final moments underline importance of 3 points; Cavalry depth holds strong

With the title race so close at the moment and the runway getting a fairly short toward the end of the season, a draw would have accomplished little for either of these sides. Winning matches, especially against the other major title contenders, will be the only way for one of these teams to separate themselves.

That’s why the final 15 minutes of the game on Friday seemed so intense; York, for their part, were obviously searching for an equalizer, but the degree of desperation they were playing with, even well before stoppage time, implied they would be pushing for a second even if they did score.

Cavalry, meanwhile, were likewise defending with the intensity that suggested they knew a draw would do very little to help them. They didn’t allow themselves to get very exposed by looking for counter-attacks and a third goal; instead, they stayed compact and pragmatic. The Cavs were fine with putting the ball out of play safely, confident in their ability to defend set-pieces. They didn’t get tempted into taking risks, choosing instead to clear it.

They also did well in the final few minutes of the game to prevent York from finding an attacking rhythm with fresh players on the pitch. Cavalry were happy to stop the game by putting it out of play, or through physicality with a number of late fouls — again, done with confidence that they could defend the free kicks.

Those intense endings are likely to become increasingly common as we move into the final two months of the 2024 CPL season. Teams all know that draws don’t accomplish much in the title race, other than to delay the moment when a team takes control and puts themselves ahead of the pack.

Expect some top-drawer entertainment in the Canadian Premier League the next few weeks.

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Maël Henry, Cavalry FC

Tommy Wheeldon Jr. often speaks very highly of Henry’s abilities, and Friday might have been the best example we’ve seen yet in a match of what he can do. Henry’s finish for his goal was outstanding, as was his tendency throughout the match to find good spaces in the attacking third and continue causing problems for the York backline with his running.

What’s next?

York will remain at home for the week, gearing up for a massive 905 Derby clash against Forge FC next Friday, Aug. 23 (8 p.m. ET). Cavalry will also be at home for their next match, as they head back to Calgary to take on Pacific FC on Saturday, Aug. 24 (3 p.m. MT/2 p.m. PT).

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