Final Score: Vancouver FC 1-3 Forge FC
Goalscorers: Tahid 88′; Choinière 35′, Badibanga 53′, Jensen 83′
Game of the 2024 season: 95
CPL match: 579

Match in a minute or less

Forge have officially booked their spot in the 2024 Canadian Premier League playoffs, as they defeated Vancouver FC 3-1 at Willoughby Community Park on Saturday.

They opened the scoring in the first half with a tidy finish from David Choinière in the 35th minute, before doubling their lead via a spectacular half-volley from Béni Badibanga in the 53rd minute, putting them in the driver’s seat with over a half-hour still to play. Then, they sealed the game in the 83rd minute, as Noah Jensen slotted home from inside of the box to make it 3-0.

Vancouver clawed one back late on, as TJ Tahid found the net in the 88th minute to cut the deficit to two, but despite mounting a late push, Forge would hold on the rest of the way to book their playoff berth and maintain their lead atop the CPL table.

Three Observations

Forge bounces back with big performance to clinch playoff spot:

It was a big day for Forge, who entered this weekend able to clinch a playoff spot with a win in this game no matter what happened elsewhere in the CPL, which was certainly a key point of motivation for them heading into this.

To their credit, they took care of business, too, putting together a complete performance at both ends to secure the result, as other than the late goal they conceded, they did well to manage this game and do what they needed to in order to win quite comfortably.

With that, they confirmed their spot in the playoffs for a sixth straight season, where they’ll now look to reach their sixth straight final and win their fifth playoff crown.

Before then, however, they’ve got a big goal – lift the CPL Shield as regular season champions, given that they sit in first in the table and are looking to top the regular season table for just the second time in their history. In fact, that’s their biggest goal right now – they want to touch silverware and secure the Concacaf Champions Cup spot that goes with it, before then turning their attention to the playoffs.

Because of that, they weren’t thinking too much about a playoff spot in this game, as their focus was instead on ensuring they put in a top performance, one that made up for their 3-0 loss to the Halifax Wanderers a week prior. A game where they looked second-best on the day, they wanted to make up for that with a big performance, ensuring that game was a blip instead of something that might derail their title race.

Certainly, they did that with this win, yet that’s a credit to their mindset as a group. All season long, they’ve done a good job of taking things one game at a time, and trying to build to peak at the right time, while remaining consistent in their performances.

To their credit, they’ve certainly done the latter – they’ve only lost two games in a row once this season, and their longest winless run sits at three games, a mark they’ve only hit once, as they’ve made a habit of ensuring they don’t go too long without a win.

Thanks to that, they’ve now booked their spot in the playoffs, and sit primed to hold onto their lead atop the table as they try and go and win a regular season title, as that week-to-week consistency has led to positive results.

“Yeah, the players everyone wasn’t happy with with last week, and it’s more about the performance than the result,” Forge’s head coach, Bobby Smyrniotis, explained after this one. “When you’re involved in this game, you know that there are three outcomes that can happen at the end, and you have to be able to to live with and deal with all of those, as it’s more the performances that we look at.”

“For this time of the year, this was the performance we wanted from the guys, which made this win much more important, as we couldn’t come out and have two (consecutive) negative results at this point in the season.”

A team that has had a knack for creating history as a club, they want to become the first team to win both the regular season and playoff crown, and that’s reflected in their week-to-week performances.

Now, they took one key step towards making that a reality, but despite that, they didn’t get too caught up on that, as they also noted that reaching the playoffs was just them achieving the bare minimum of what they wanted to accomplish this season – they’re far from done working toward those goals, and don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

“That’s always one of your goals in the season,” Choinière said of reaching the playoffs. “Now that we’ve achieved it, the bigger one is to stay at the top, and we managed to get the three points to keep us at the top of the table, and now with four games left, we’re going to do our best to stay there, as that’s our next goal.”

“This is the minimum standard for our club each and each and every year, because that’s what gives you the ability to be a champion in this league,” Smyrniotis added.

Vancouver’s attack comes alive too late as goalscoring woes continue:

Entering this game without a goal in three straight games, Vancouver entered this game looking for a spark offensively, as they looked to get their offence going following those three straight shutouts.

As a result, they came out quite lively, but they were unable to turn that into anything, as five first-half shots, including three of them in the box, failed to lead to any goals.

In the second half, however, they turned things up a notch, and they were finally rewarded for that late on. Having generated 16 shots, including eight of them from inside of the box, they did a good job of getting the ball into the right areas, and that allowed them to finally bust their slump with Tahid’s marker.

At the same time, they’ll have left feeling like they could’ve been even more dangerous offensively than they ended up being on the day. Given that they finished with 21 shots (including seven on target), generating an impressive 2.43 xG, they could’ve arguably had three or four goals in this one, yet only left with the one marker in their pocket.

Given that Forge were able to find three goals on just 13 shots (seven on target) and 1.51 xG, it’s not unreasonable to feel that Vancouver missed out on the opportunity to stamp their authority on the game offensively.

Yet, that just shows how ruthless Forge were, and the difference between the two teams on the day. Vancouver got into the right positions, and had the chances, but when it came down to the key moments, they often second-guessed themselves, or took an extra touch when they should’ve shot.

Because of that, it’s fitting that on Tahid’s late marker, they were able to craft a swift and decisive move to create the goal, as that was the exact sort of play they would’ve looked to generate earlier.

“It’s been a tough few games,” Tahid explained. “So after not being able to score in those games, even after having some pretty good chances, being able to get this one today is a big positive to take out of this game and to go on to the next games knowing that we’re able to score.”

Now, however, they’ll hope that it can help spark their attack, and they’ll look at the last 10 minutes as a reason to believe that might be the case. Given that they generated six shots after the 80th minute mark, looking incredibly dangerous and fluid in the attack, that’ll be something they’ll now look to build on going forward.

If they’re to make the playoffs, they’ll need the goals to start falling at a much higher rate, and to do that they’ll want to turn those 10 minutes into something they can replicate across the entirety of the match.

Especially given that new signing Austin Ricci played a big role at the end, assisting Tahid’s goal with a nice cross, they’ll look at that as something they can build off of, knowing that his arrival could spark those around him to find the confidence they’ve been lacking in front of goal as of late.

“It’s a combination of quality and confidence,” Vancouver’s head coach, Afshin Ghotbi, said. “And when you’re a team on top of the table, when you’re a team that are winning games, even going at 60, 70% of your potential, you know when to switch it on, and you know how to win games. I think our players need a little bit more confidence, and that’s something we’ve been trying to help them with.”

Forge’s wingers dominate half-space in strong offensive showing:

After being shut out against the Halifax Wanderers in their last game, just the fifth time that’s happened to them this season, Forge were looking for a response offensively in this game, and they certainly got it. Their seventh game in which they’ve scored three or more goals, it was a ruthless and effective performance, and they can thank their wide players for playing a big role in making it happen.

Sitting in more of a 4-2-3-1 out of possession, Forge used that width to their advantage in possession, as David Choinière and Béni Badibanga were given lots of space to operate when on the ball.

Instead of pushing out wide and hugging the touch line, however, the duo found their joy by drifting into the half-space between Vancouver’s centre backs and their full backs, doing well to play narrowly in possession.

That ended up causing lots of problems for Vancouver’s full backs, who found it hard to track them with the spaces they were taking up. In particular, their movement off the ball proved to be a handful, as they did well to drift into open spaces that were hard to track, doing so on both of their first two goals.

Especially given that Forge was playing without a natural striker, as Amadou Koné was tasked with leading the line, that central support provided from the wingers was crucial. With Koné having the freedom to drift anywhere across the front and deeper on the pitch, that opened up space for the wingers to cut inside and operate in the space he opened it up, and they did that to perfection.

As a result, Choinière and Badibanga ended up having quite the impact on this game – Choinière scored one and assisted another, finishing with three shots and two chances created, while Badibanga had one goal, generating four shots and creating one chance.

Yet, it’s the exact sort of game Forge has made the habit of producing offensively, as they continue to be the most dangerous attacking team in the CPL, having now scored 42 goals in just 24 games. They can attack in different ways, as each player on the field has a different role to play offensively, which can manifest itself in different ways depending on the game.

Some matches, they’ll play through their striker more, on other days, they’ll look for the wide players to shine, and sometimes, they’ll task their midfielders with creating from deep.

That’s tough to defend, because if you focus on defending one area, they can hurt you in others.

“Yeah, it’s there’s not only me and Béni (Badibanga), it’s a combination of everybody doing their part and creating space for others,” Choinière explained. “And we managed to do that really well today – that’s a credit to the whole team.”

Just look at their third goal from this game as an example of that. After conceding goals from Choinière and Badibanga that originated from the pair getting open in the half-space, they tried to close down Choinière after he received the ball in that central channel, but they were unable to pick up the late run of Noah Jensen, who ran into the space vacated by the defenders who look to slow down Choinière.

From there, all it took was Choinière playing a perfect pass to Jensen, and the midfielder did the rest from there to secure the victory for his side, one that was emblematic of what they can be when at their offensive best.

“It’s something we work on a lot,” Smyrniotis said of his team’s attack. “If you watch our team play, these are things that we do, and we try to do it in a variety of ways, with a lot of different motion, which makes it difficult for an opponent to look at. We try to get into those zones, as you give yourself a higher chance of scoring goals, and we know there are certain things that are important for us to do to give us an opportunity to score.”

“So we’re getting into those zones, having certain players fill certain parts in the box, and there are three to four metrics that if you do it right on a proper day, you score goals, and we’ve done that today.”

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

David Choinière, Forge FC

Choinière was a constant threat down the right side for Forge in this game, putting in a relentless performance on both sides of the ball for his team.

That’s reflected in the numbers, too, as he finished with one goal, one assist, three shots and two chances created as mentioned earlier, but he also completed 28 out of 31 of his passes (90%), four touches in the box, two dribbles, two passes into the final third, three tackles, one clearance, one interception, five recoveries and won six out of 13 of his duels in a complete showing.

What’s next?

Vancouver FC will head out on the road for their next match, as they get set to face Cavalry FC at ATCO Field on Sunday, September 29th (4:00 p.m. PT/5:00 p.m. MT). Meanwhile, Forge will return home to face rivals York United in the latest edition of the 905 Derby at Tim Hortons Field on Saturday, September 29th (4:00 p.m. ET).

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