Final Score: Forge FC 3-0 FC Laval
Goalscorers: Jensen 36′, 55′, Pacius 57′ (Pen.)
2023 Canadian Championship
Preliminary Round

Match in a minute or less

Forge FC are through to the quarter-finals of the Canadian Championship, having beaten FC Laval 3-0 on Tuesday night at Tim Hortons Field. The champions of the Canadian Premier League and Première ligue de soccer du Québec, respectively, went toe-to-toe in this preliminary round tie, but ultimately the Hamilton CPL side saw themselves through comfortably.

Noah Jensen continued his torrid start to the campaign with a pair of goals — a first-time strike from the top of the box and a deflected free kick from 25 yards — and Woobens Pacius added a third from the penalty spot to open his 2023 account. So, Forge sailed on and now await either Halifax Wanderers or Atlético Ottawa in the next round in early May.

Three Observations

Two-footed Noah Jensen’s hot start continues

For the second match in a row, 23-year-old Noah Jensen was a hero for Forge FC. Starting in midfield — perhaps a slightly more reserved role than on Saturday — Jensen was again tremendous.

With Forge having more of the ball, though, Jensen was nonetheless very active in the attack. He scored twice on Tuesday, in two different ways: the first was a similar first-time distance strike on a loose ball to his goal on Saturday, but with the right foot rather than his left this time. Jensen’s second goal was a free kick from five yards outside the box, which he sent with power into the box to deflect off a Laval defender and in.

Jensen came off in the 75th minute after playing 82 on Saturday, finishing with 52 accurate passes (85.2 per cent accuracy) and winning possession a team-high eight times.

Forge captain Kyle Bekker remained out of the squad on Tuesday night, with his much-anticipated return more likely to come this weekend. At this point, though, it may not necessarily be Jensen who’s dropped from the starting XI when Bekker does return, as may have been the plan previously. Having so many capable midfielders is, of course, a fantastic problem for Smyrniotis to have, but picking his team for this weekend’s game against Halifax just became much more difficult.

As Smyrniotis quipped postgame, a selection headache is the best kind of headache to have — and at this early point in the season, he still doesn’t know his best XI. It’s a long season, which means he’ll have plenty of time to figure that out, but at the moment it seems Noah Jensen may be part of it.

Quick ball movement allows Forge to break through Laval block

Unsurprisingly, the visiting Laval set up for this match in a conservative low block, usually with five — sometimes even six — defenders flat across the back. Even so, Forge found it tricky in the early going to get through them, with some attempted long balls to bypass a congested midfield often getting caught in the wind or missing their mark.

By keeping defensive midfielders close in front of the back five as well, Laval took away a lot of the central routes into the box, forcing Forge to go wide to David Choinière and Terran Campbell. Early on, Laval actually did quite well to protect the dangerous areas, though Forge did seem to be patient in feeling out their opponent.

Eventually, Forge increased the intensity of their rhythm, moving the ball much more quickly once they’d found which runs were effective in creating gaps.

With Laval’s PLSQ season not set to begin for several weeks, they don’t have the match fitness or sharpness that Forge do — the CPL side may have just started their own season on Saturday, but they’re also in good shape after a long preseason, including several weeks in Costa Rica. So, the Hammers could afford to wait out their opponents and be patient before pressing the accelerator.

Laval coach Boubacar Coulibaly pointed out after the game that his side usually likes to press much higher, which they might have tried had they been in a midseason rhythm, but against what Coulibaly called a “top-four team in Canada,” the didn’t quite have the legs to play as expansively as they might’ve liked.

Forge invert midfield; Borges dynamic in wide-ranging no. 10 role

Forge boss Bobby Smyrniotis made one tweak to his attacking shape on Tuesday night, inverting his midfield triangle to put Tristan Borges as the spearhead in front of a double pivot of Noah Jensen and Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson.

The number 10 spot is a position Borges has played before for Forge — most notably toward the end of the 2021 season — but not very often last year. With the midfield very congested and Laval putting as many as six players across the back, Borges had to drift around the attacking third, trying to pull defenders around and open up channels.

When the ball came to him, Borges was eager to take on defenders, creating three chances in the first half alone with 25 passes in the attacking third. He went searching for the ball in the half-spaces, allowing him to link up with wingers.

It’s not often that Borges gets to combine directly with David Choinière — the two are most often deployed as opposite wingers in Forge’s usual attacking shape — but the pair had a few intriguing moments of interplay on Tuesday to suggest this may be a combination for Smyrniotis to further explore.

Smyrniotis explained postmatch that, knowing the midfield would be clogged on Tuesday, he opted to put Borges in the middle for a more aggressive front four. He wanted to get one of his best and most creative players on the ball as much as possible, and he succeeded with Borges getting 55 touches — most of them very dangerous.

“We wanted to see [Borges] work on the right side a little bit with Choinière, but also be able to come inside and have the other two players in front of him in Terran Campbell and Woobens Pacius,” Smyrniotis said.

“We did an excellent job staying away from the middle of the field which was going to be clogged today, going to the outside areas. Sometimes you want your most creative players on the ball and you have to free him up with the motions and rotations on the field.”

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Noah Jensen, Forge FC

Honourable mention to Borges, but Jensen’s two-goal outing is the story of the night, as the young midfielder continues his astonishing start to the season in a very difficult position.

What’s next?

Forge now move on to the quarter-finals, where they’ll play either Atlético Ottawa or Halifax Wanderers the week of May 9-11. Before then, however, Forge will return to CPL action this Saturday, when they host Halifax at Tim Hortons Field (4 p.m. ET).

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