Final Score: Pacific FC 0-1 Atlético Ottawa
Goalscorers: del Campo 33′
Game of the 2024 season: 20
CPL match: 504

Match in a minute or less

Atlético Ottawa now have sole possession of first place in the Canadian Premier League through six matchdays, as they defeated Pacific FC 1-0 at Starlight Stadium on Friday to remain undefeated in CPL play in 2024.

Rubén del Campo opened the scoring in the first half for Ottawa, as he slammed home a half-volley from a tight angle for his league-leading fourth goal of the season, having now scored in four straight games in league play. Amid a chaotic first half for Pacific, who had to use all three of their substitution windows due to injury, Ottawa was able to capitalize on a strong start to make that goal a deserving one, too.

From there, they were able to hold on despite a late Pacific push, with Pacific coming close to breaking open the game late as Dario Zanatta struck the post in the final minutes of the game, which allowed Ottawa to extend their unbeaten run to start this CPL season to six games.

Three Observations

Clinical Ottawa shows versatility of new-look attack in big win:

Through the first five weeks of the CPL season, Atlético Ottawa were the only team to score in every league game they’d played, sitting as the team with the most goals in the league.

In this game, they showed why that was the case, as they were able to keep their goalscoring streak intact, adding to their league-leading tally with a timely goal.

Fittingly, it came off the boot of someone who has played a big role in this strong start for Ottawa’a attack, Rubén del Campo, who has now scored in four straight league games to sit atop the Golden Boot race, yet his goal was a perfect sign of what Ottawa’s attack has done so well, in a sense.

Coming off a cross into the box from Maxim Tissot, del Campo was able to take the ball in stride, and then showed some excellent composure to ensure he’d find the goal. Instead of shooting right away, he used his patience to open a lane for him to shoot to the left of Pacific’s goal, and then he finished perfectly, striking the ball with power off the far post with his preferred left foot to give the team his lead.

Of course, that can also be seen as a sign of del Campo’s confidence, given that he now leads the league in goals as of writing after scoring zero in 2023, but that confidence is emblematic of Ottawa’s offensive group – they’re finding different ways to score right now.

Be it off set-pieces, wide balls, transition moments or combination play, they’re finding ways to be dangerous in all phases of play, putting pressure on opposing defences.

“We work every day in training to try to find different ways to put to put the ball in the back of the net and use all the qualities that we have on the ball and on set pieces,” goalkeeper Rayane Yesli said after the game. “It’s beautiful to see a team being able to score from different from different kinds of actions.”

In a game like this, against a Pacific side riding a CPL-record five-game clean sheet streak, they knew it wasn’t going to be easy to breach their target, but that didn’t bother them. Instead, they put them under pressure early and often in the first half, forcing them into some dangerous blocks, knowing that if they were able to wear them down and get a chance, they’d finish it.

That’s where del Campo came into play, and he made no mistake with his chance, and from there, that was enough for Ottawa to win.

Yet, this is the big difference with this new-look Ottawa side in 2024. They remain strong defensively, as is expected of an Atlético team, but they can now hurt teams offensively in different ways, and that’s a dangerous combination.

This match was the perfect example of what that can look like when it all clicks, and it allowed Ottawa to grab one of the most impressive wins of this young season, picking up just the third road win in all of the CPL this season – fittingly, they’ve now got two of those three wins, another reflection of this strong start of theirs.

“I’m very satisfied,” Ottawa head coach, Carlos González said of his team’s performance after the match. “I’m very proud of the effort that the players have been doing over the last month, only people who have been here every single day know about their work and the effort they’ve made, because it’s been tough in certain moments, they’ve been playing a lot of games in a short amount of time.”

“And today, in the the second half, they did a game which wasn’t as easy, but if you want to be a winning team, you have to get results and points in different ways, so I’m very satisfied and happy that they (did that).”

Frustrating first half sinks Pacific in first loss of 2024:

Heading into this game, it feels like nearly everything has gone right for Pacific this season, which is why they sat tied atop of the table with Ottawa before the match.

Of course, they were fully deserving of that spot – their defensive work to start the year has been excellent, as they’d allowed the fewest xG of any team, and the lowest xG per shot. Along with some timely goalscoring, that had allowed them to sit where they did through five games, as they’d looked the part of a team that could push up the table if they maintained this start.

Because of that, they’ll feel frustrated that they lost this game, not because it was a poor performance, but it feels like everything went wrong for them at the worst time.

There’s no better example of that than the first half, in which Pacific picked up three injuries in just 33 minutes, forcing them to exhaust all three of their substitution windows by the 35th minute, which was less than ideal. Then, adding insult to injury, Ottawa’s goal came during a moment where they were down to 10 players due to one of those injuries, having yet to make the change to bring in a new player for an injured Sean Young.

That ended up putting Pacific in a tough situation heading into the second half – not only did they need to chase the game to try and claw back a draw or win, but they needed to do so while shorthanded, as unless they made any half time substitutions, they weren’t able to bring any other substitutes for fresh legs for the rest of the game.

Despite that, they nearly salvaged a result, as they didn’t sink in the face of this moment of adversity. Even though they elected not to use their final subs at half time, they seemed to have all sorts of energy in the second half, as those on the pitch seemed to work extra hard to make up for that lack of substitutions they had at their disposal.

In fact, other than some moments of bad luck, including Zanatta’s late post, they had every reason to believe they could’ve left this game with a point, too, as they did well to put Ottawa under pressure in the second half, hardly letting them out of their own end of the pitch.

“They didn’t come in our end other than maybe the one chance that we gave them at the end,” Pacific’s Christian Greco-Taylor, who made his CPL debut off the bench, said after the match. “We were dominating in the last 20-25 minutes, we just needed to get into the final third, get into the box and get the goals going, that’s the only thing we needed, that creativity going forward, and that will come, but I think for the most part, we dominated the whole second half.”

Therefore, while they’ll be frustrated with how this game went for them, they’ll be pleased with what they learned from this game. In the face of all sorts of adversity, having not faced much of it in previous games, they didn’t fold in the face of the challenge that was presented to them.

Instead, they seemed to grow from it, and that’s a good sign going forward. With how well they’ve defended, they’ll be in most games, but not everything is going to go as perfectly as they have to start the year – there are going to be these sorts of moments of adversity that crop up.

When they come up, however, Pacific will know that they’ve got the mentality to tackle them head on, with this game being a good example of that.

“I think that’s the first real bit of adversity that we’ve faced as a team and as a group,” Pacific head coach James Merriman noted afterwards. “And if we look at the character and the way we responded, the conversations that we had at halftime, it was really impressive in terms of our mentality, which is very strong.”

“The biggest challenge for us is to be more aggressive and reward ourselves for what we’re doing. In the second half, it was there for us to go into take the game with the way Ottawa defended in the second half, dropping lower, as we were on the ball more, we were more attacking, and we needed to get more out of our positive attacking situations, we needed to be stronger to towards goal.”

“So we’ll challenge ourselves, we’ll take the good in the way we responded to the injuries, and we’ll move forward to the next game.”

Ottawa’s taps into defensive DNA to pick up pivotal clean sheet:

It may have been forgotten to start the year, given how prolific their offence has been, but Atlético Ottawa served up an important reminder in this game – no matter how strong their attack is, they’re always going to stick to their DNA.

The same DNA that has made Atlético Madrid a side to be feared in Europe, Ottawa continues to embrace those same principles, as they’re always willing to put everything on the line in order to keep clean sheets and their opponents away from their goal.

Sometimes, it’s not always pretty, as they can be made to fight to earn results, but they always seem to take those sort of challenges head on.

This game was a great example of that. Even as Pacific pushed late, coming close to breaching Ottawa’s target on a few occasions, Ottawa kept on battling, doing what they could to earn a clean sheet.

Be it a tough tackle, entering in a duel or making a recovery run, it seemed like Ottawa was ready to lay everything on the line to earn the clean sheet.

Therefore, while their defensive play wasn’t always the sharpest, as their defensive aggression nearly led to a few dangerous mistakes, they kept making up for those errors with how they recovered from them.

That’s huge, especially when you look at the team they put out on the pitch to start the game – just five of the players they started with were at the club last year in Luke Singh, Maxim Tissot, Alberto Zapater, Ollie Bassett and Rubén del Campo, with two of them, del Campo and Zapater, having only joined halfway through last season.

Despite having a backline that hasn’t had a whole lot of experience together in Tissot, Singh, Amer Didić, Kris Twardek and goalkeeper Rayane Yesli, they all bought into that Atlético DNA in this game, doing what they needed to in order to preserve the clean sheet and the win.

With that, they were able to claim a win that could prove to be massive for them down the road. With wins away from home being hard to come by for teams to start this CPL season, that Ottawa now has two of them is key, helping explain why they sit where they do in the CPL table.

Yet, that’s just a sign of what’s gone right for them to this point. Certainly, their attack is improved, they’re deeper at each position and they’ve got lots of experience, but they’ve also been willing to grind out their results, as you sometimes need to do to.

Despite entering this year with a lot of pressure on their back, which can sometimes get to a team, they’ve kept their head down and not swayed from their philosophies, allowing them to sit where they do in the table.

“It was a big effort from from the whole backline, these types of games are difficult to manage, especially playing here, with the quality that they have,” Yesli said after the match. “But our whole backline has experience, there are experienced players who know how to deal with with these kinds of moments, and I felt we were able to stay strong together and manage the highs and the lows to get the victory.”

“It’s very useful to find different ways to score goals, to give us an advantage, and this is what we’re working on,” González said. “There are moments in which other teams defend us well, so we have to try to find situations to score, be it in transition or in other ways, and that’s been a key point to help us become a more complete team.”

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Rubén del Campo, Atlético Ottawa

There aren’t many players in better form in the CPL than del Campo, and he showed that in his performance in this game.

Not only did he nab the winning goal with his league-leading fourth tally of the season, but he was lively all night long, too, finishing with four shots, several of them dangerous, as well as two chances created.

Through that, he was able to play a big role in his team’s victory, helping them push up the table.

What’s next?

Pacific FC will be back in action next week, as they make the short trip to the Lower Mainland to face Vancouver FC in a Salish Sea Derby at Langley’s Willoughby Community Park on Saturday, May 25th (3:00 p.m. PT). Meanwhile, Atlético Ottawa return home to host Forge FC at TD Place earlier that same Saturday (3:00 p.m. ET).