Final Score: Vancouver FC 1-1 Forge FC
Goalscorers: Bah 72′; Choinière 6′, Schiavoni 89′
Game of the 2024 season: 75
CPL match: 559

Match in a minute or less

A perfect week for Forge came to an end in style out in British Columbia, as they beat Vancouver FC 2-1 at Willoughby Community Park to remain atop the CPL table, doing so thanks to their third victory in just over a week.

Forge opened the scoring inside six minutes, as Jordan Hamilton picked out David Choinière, who slotted home from close range to make it 1-0. Then, Vancouver responded in the 72nd minute, as Mikaël Cantave found Elage Bah with a perfect cross into the box, one that Bah nodded home from close range to make it 1-1.

From there, however, Forge would seal the win in style late on, as Nana Ampomah found the run Matteo Schiavoni with a perfect ball over the top, and the youngster did well to take the ball in stride and fire home his first professional goal, securing the win for his team.

Three Observations

Magical Schiavoni moment caps off perfect week for Forge:

For a moment, Forge looked to have run out of gas in this game, and at the wrong time, as Vancouver had just scored and looked to be in the ascendancy as they chased a late winner.

Having brought on some fresh legs, and buoyed by the support of the home crowd, they looked primed to pounce, allowing them to get a massive win in the table.

Against a Forge side who had played in midweek, and dealt with some travel issues ahead of their arrival to Vancouver, the game was right there for Vancouver and they seemed to sense that.

After a rush of Vancouver chances after the 80th minute, however, Forge managed to craft up the energy for one last dangerous attack. Despite being outnumbered on a counter-attack, they were patient, and eventually found an opening when Ampomah found Schiavoni with a perfect pass, and the rest was history.

With that, Forge was able to cap off a perfect week in style. Despite having to play three games in nine days as they played a rescheduled match against the Halifax Wanderers in midweek, allowing them to make up the game-in-hand they had on most of the table, they were able to escape from this stretch unscathed with three massive victories in their pocket.

Unlike the first two wins, however, in which they were able to win relatively comfortably over Atlético Ottawa and Halifax by a combined score of 5-0, they were made to work for this, making the pay-off feel sweeter.

In a sense, however, it was fitting that their unlikely hero was Schiavoni, who was making just his sixth appearance for Forge. All coming off the bench, totalling 16 minutes, he’s been yet to fully carve out a regular role in the team, and was looking to make the most of this latest cameo, and he did just that, emerging as the unlikely hero for his team in a key moment.

At the end of a week where it was revealed that there was transfer interest in Forge’s Kwasi Poku, who has missed the last two games as he sorts out his club future, it’s almost symmetric that Forge was able to then rely on another one of their youngsters to find the sort of clutch goal Poku’s made a habit of scoring this season.

Now, expect to see a lot more of Schiavoni going forward. Having worked hard behind the scenes to earn more minutes, he could be in line to play a bigger role in the next stretch, especially in terms of helping Forge earn more U21 Canadian minutes if Poku departs.

Yet, that’s one thing that this Forge squad has consistently done well over the years – rely on their entire squad to contribute over the course of a long season, and in this game, Schiavoni was able to find a way to chip in, scoring the sort of goal that could prove to be massive in a congested CPL title race.

“That’s something we’ve talked with him about in the last few weeks, that those moments are going to come for him based on the work that he’s put in over the last last while,” Forge’s head coach, Bobby Smyniotis, said of Schiavoni afterwards. “There’s nothing better for a player to be able to (score) and to give himself a boost. We always talk about having 23 players, or however many players on a roster – they’re all going to be an important piece to what you do if you want to win championships, that’s the one big thing I’ve learned over six years with this club, we need these moments from everybody.”

Vancouver undone by “silly” defensive mistakes amid solid showing:

Overall, Vancouver will have a lot of reasons to be frustrated after this loss, as they put in a strong showing against an in-form side.

As mentioned earlier, they even looked likeliest to win as the game wore on, doing well to find their feet as Forge began to show visible signs of fatigue.

Doing well to stretch the pitch and get their wingers going in 1v1 situations, Vancouver started to take control in the second half, and that’s reflected in the stats, as they held 57% of possession in the last 45 minutes, out-shooting Forge 10-5, with seven of those shots coming inside Forge’s box.

Because of that, it didn’t just seem likely that they’d score, it seemed like an eventuality, as they were starting to get into the dangerous areas after generating just one shot inside Forge’s box in the first half, a stanza in which they held just 39% of possession.

Yet, that’s why Forge’s winning goal will frustrate Vancouver so much. Coming off a routine transition moment, Vancouver had done well to recover defensively after Forge had seemed likely to hit them on the break, getting good numbers back behind the ball.

As a result, Forge was forced to play backwards, which is why Ampomah had actually received the ball while moving back towards his goal right before he played his killer pass to Schiavoni.

Perhaps having felt they had navigated the main counter-attacking threat, and seeing that Forge’s striker, Terran Campbell, had yet to push up to his position after helping Forge defend the preceding set-pieces, Vancouver looked shocked when Ampomah then decided to go direct instead of playing the ball around as Forge often does in possession.

That’s why Schiavoni had so much space to take the ball down and finish a chance he certainly will have not expected to have received, yet it ended up coming from a strange defensive sequence from Vancouver.

Plus, it wasn’t the only strange defensive sequence that Vancouver had defensively, as Forge’s first goal was one that the hosts will want to forget. After Forge’s attack broke down, the ball fell to Rocco Romeo at the edge of the box, who had the time to pick out a pass and jumpstart a possession sequence for his team.

Instead, the usually sure-footed defender was unable to complete his pass, playing it right back to Forge, who had the ball in the net one pass and shot later thanks to Choinière.

Already a tough goal to concede, especially given how early in the game that it came, Vancouver will feel frustrated that they defended impeccably from that point on, as after allowing that 0.71 xG chance from Choinière, Forge weren’t able to generate a chance over 0.12 xG until Schiavoni scored on an 0.731 xG attempt.

Yet, that’s why the Schiavoni goal will be so frustrating for Vancouver, who had otherwise done well to limit Forge’s dangerous opportunities after an early mistake, and will have felt confident that they could’ve done so the rest of the way.

At the same time, that’s the nature of playing a team like Forge – you can have a relatively strong day defensively, and still concede multiple goals off mistakes, and Vancouver learned that the hard way in this game.

On the flipside, Vancouver will feel that they’ve had too many games like this as of late, especially at home, where they’ve played five of their last six games yet now have a record of just 1W-1D-3L (4 PTS) across those five games to show for it. Across that stretch, they’ve had some pretty solid performances, but have allowed several goals they’ll want back, much like they did in this game.

Now, that’ll be their big focus over the next stretch, having now conceded a league-high 32 goals. If they’re to make the playoffs, and make some noise in the playoffs, defensive play will be important, and that’s not lost on them.

Because of that, keep an eye on that as they tackle a stretch where they’ll play three of their next four games away from home, which will be pivotal for them as they look to maintain their status as a playoff team, as they won’t be able to afford making these sort of mistakes if they want to push towards their goals.

“We just have to learn a little bit faster, our learning curve is, for me, is too long,” Vancouver’s head coach, Afshin Ghotbi, bemoaned after. “We are making the same mistakes we made in games 3, 4 and 5.”

He added: “We have to learn to not make those mistakes again, we’re making them too many time and it’s cost us 32 goals against, with many of them being very silly goals.”

Forge uses direct attack to surprise Vancouver: 

It’s never easy to defend Forge, who continue to lead the league in goals after this two-goal showing, which put them up to 35 on the season. Most impressively, too? All 35 goals have been from non-penalty situations, too, as they and York United are the lone two CPL sides to not score from the spot this season.

The big reason for that? They can score in many ways and from several different sources, which is reflected in the fact that Schiavoni became their 14th different player to find the net this season – an especially impressive figure when one realizes the CPL’s all-time leading scorer, Terran Campbell, is yet to score in 2024 after dealing with an injury he’s just returned from after missing most of the season to date, as one can figure he’ll make that number #15 sooner rather than later.

Be it in possession, on the counter, on corners and free kicks or by other factors, Forge knows how to be dangerous around the opponents goal, no matter the phase of play.

That makes them so hard to defend, as they can adjust to what the game throws at them, while knowing that they have many players who can step up and put the ball in the net when it comes down to it.

Vancouver saw that first-hand in this game, as Forge decided to play a bit more direct, with both of their goals coming off a direct counter-attack and then a simple ball over the top.

Instead of the usual panache and finesse Forge are used to showing, they realized the space was there for them to attack into if they kept things simple and put Vancouver under pressure, and they were rewarded for that with the goals.

“You need to be able to change things up, as we see different things with different teams,” Smyrniotis explained. “With Vancouver, in the last couple of games against us, they’ve played with a higher line and try and trapped us in the midfield zones, as we’re a team that tends to pass the ball around in those situations, and to be honest, it’s come back to hurt us against them, so that was something we stressed this week in training, which was to read their defensive line and see if we could get in behind a little quicker.”

That ended up being crucial for them, allowing them to pick up just their second road win of the season. Perhaps, that shows why they were willing to play more direct than usual, but that’s also the beauty of Forge’s attack – they’ll adjust to what the game throws at them.

In this game, they had to play a lot more on the back foot and without the ball as it wore on and they tired out, but that didn’t bother them, as they knew they had the speed to hit Vancouver on the counter if the right moment arose. It did, and they were ready for it, and that allowed them to grab the win from there.

“There are so many ways that we could attack (today) with myself, Béni (Badibanga), (Tristan) Borges, Jay Hamilton,” Choinière explained. “There were many ways that we can change, move and rotate, so I think it’s just about doing the right thing at the right time, as that’s what matters the most for attacking players.”

Now, they’ll look to build off this as they look to win a bit more regularly away from home. If they’re to do that, their attack will play a big role, as they’ve now scored just 12 of their goals in nine away games, compared to the 23 they’ve found in 10 home games, showing that they can still be even better when it comes to attacking away from home.

They showed that in this game, and will now to pull out similar attacking output in their five remaining road games that they have this season, in which they’ll need some big wins if they’re to keep their spot atop the table.

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Béni Badibanga, Forge FC

Badibanga was a constant threat for Forge in this game, doing well to attack Vancouver in several dangerous areas, while putting in an important shift defensively. As a result, he finished with two shots, three chances created, three dribbles, three passes into the final third and five fouls won, while also winning nine out of 14 duels in a complete showing.

What’s next?

Vancouver will head on the road next week, as they get set to face Valour at Princess Auto Stadium on Sunday, August 25th. Meanwhile, Forge will return to Ontario, but will head out on the road for a 905 Derby clash against rivals York United at York Lions Stadium on Friday, August 23rd.

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