Final Score: Atlético Ottawa 1-0 Vancouver FC
Goalscorers: Salter 9′
Game of the 2023 season: 40
CPL match: 407

Match in a minute or less

Atlético Ottawa remained perfect against Vancouver FC on Saturday at TD Place, beating the expansion side 1-0 to put some more space between themselves and VFC at the bottom of the league table.

Samuel Salter opened the scoring for the hosts with a volley on a second ball into the box, but that would be the only reward Atleti would get from a dominant first half that saw them create 13 shots. Still, despite improvement from Vancouver in the second half, that Salter goal would also be all Ottawa needed to ultimately see out a clean-sheet win at home.

Three Observations

Ottawa see out win, but can’t kill off game in dominant first half

Atlético Ottawa will leave Saturday’s game with a mixed bag of emotions. On one hand, they added three crucial points in a clean-sheet win on home turf. On the other, they perhaps made that more difficult for themselves than it needed to be.

The early stages of this match saw Ottawa play some of the best attacking football they’ve played under Carlos González, with 13 shots and 22 touches in the penalty area in the first half. Vancouver had almost no answer for Ottawa’s aggressive high press, with two or even three red striped shirts closing in on ball carriers to force giveaways or rushed long balls. They held Vancouver to just 137 completed passes (at 77.4 per cent accuracy) in the first 45 minutes, while they themselves made 204 (at 84.6 per cent accuracy).

The problem, though? For all that pressure and intensity, Ottawa did not capitalize on their advantage. Their 1.54 expected goals in the first half suggests they had ample opportunity to put another in the net — indeed, they had four chances in the first half alone with a higher xG value than the one Salter scored. Noah Verhoeven had a well-taken shot from distance palmed over the bar by Callum Irving, but a number of other Ottawa chances simply missed the net.

There may be some frustration there for González that his team couldn’t put the game to bed, but he’ll be far happier with the fact that his side played some of its most free-flowing attacking football of the season. The next step will be, of course, to get the ball in the net more consistently to make the best of that attacking play, but it’s not always that Atlético Ottawa get forward so aggressively.

“The most important thing we are doing is getting there,” González said postmatch. ¨It’s true that after that we have to be more forceful in those types of situations, because if not at the end of the day we are playing games and we don’t close them. We leave them open and we leave the chance to the opponent to get into the game. We know that, we are working on that, but also the dynamic we’ve been in the last few months is in certain moments we’re not taking the right decisions near the goal, or we’re rushing the actions a little bit.

“I think that once we get into a more fluid dynamic that the team feels like we are winning consistently, all these things will disappear. Although we have a transfer window, I think it’s about a mental state to improve.”

The past few weeks have actually seen Atleti come out of their shell with the ball quite a bit, with 45 shots now in their past three games. Ottawa’s squad is getting healthier — not only did Carl Haworth get back in the squad, but so too did Nathan Ingham in goal, and González had more depth than ever to call on from the bench.

On the whole, this is a positive moment and clear evidence of progress from the beginning of the season for Atlético Ottawa. If anything, the fact they could’ve had more but still won with a clean sheet is a sign of even better things to come in the capital.

Ottawa ruthless in attacking Vancouver fullbacks

The first half of this match saw an Atlético Ottawa team that attacked with intent, identifying weaknesses in the Vancouver side and exploiting them well.

Their main avenue for attacking success was passes in behind the VFC fullbacks. The visitors started a pair of under-21s on the flanks of their backline in Tyler Crawford and James Cameron — the latter making his first professional start. Both players are perhaps more attack-minded, but in a game like this where Ottawa had a lot of the ball, both Crawford and Cameron found themselves under pressure constantly.

On the right side, Ollie Bassett and Carl Haworth were a nightmare for Crawford to handle, as the experienced pair played short give-and-go passes to get Bassett on the ball in space behind where he could attack the box and look for Samuel Salter. On the left, Maxim Tissot and Zach Verhoven were keen to take on Cameron, who actually did fairly well one-on-one but often had to over-commit to a ball-carrier which again created space behind for Ottawa to drive into the penalty area.

Ottawa’s heatmap from the first half is telling of how deliberate their attack was, particularly with attempts in behind the left fullback and cutting back into the box:

González pointed out as well that, with Crawford and Cameron playing fairly high and tucking in a bit in the first half, his wide players could exploit those spaces. Vancouver, to their credit, spotted the issue and addressed it in the second half.

“I felt that in the first half they were leaving big spaces,” González said. “They had a defensive line very high, and those triangles outside worked well. How to press, how to support each other, how to have this chemistry and synergy between the front players. In the second half they dropped a little bit more in the defence and there weren’t that many spaces, and this made it a little bit more difficult to get into the back of their lines.”

Ghotbi doesn’t hesitate to make changes; VFC improve with subs

After a disastrous first half from which Vancouver likely felt lucky to emerge down just one goal, Afshin Ghotbi knew he had to change something in his team’s setup. The VFC boss called the first half-hour of the game a “no-show” from his side postmatch; tj

He went for the drastic option, making the rare halftime triple substitution. He took off both his wingers, Min-jae Kwak and Nicky Gyimah, and replaced them with Mael Henry (who had played 13 total minutes this year previously) and 16-year-old TJ Tahid. In the middle of the park, Ghotbi took off Nima Moazeni Zadeh and replaced him with Ibrahim Bakare, who has impressed this year at centre-back and right-back but here was asked to play in defensive midfield.

Those changes — along with the tactical adjustments and advice Ghotbi handed down at halftime — seemed to settle Vancouver in the second half. They looked far calmed on the ball and were able to play through Ottawa’s press, finding avenues to play in transition and stretch the game out.

“I felt especially in the side channels we did such a poor job in the first half defending, and the two players I substituted in the side channels didn’t do their job and what we had defined for them to do,” Ghotbi explained.

“Even in the attack, they didn’t give us much energy or the positions that they took, the actions they took were just not good enough. I thought both changes did much better. I also thought the midfield lacked the presence that I wanted it to [have]. I felt Ollie [Bassett] had too much space, and we were very, very open in the middle of the park. By bringing Ibra in there, I felt that because we’re behind we can attack with a little bit more confidence knowing we have coverage behind us.”

Ghotbi also pointed out postmatch how young his side was for this game — not only did they have under-21s at both fullback spots, but 19-year-old Anthony White got his first start at centre-back and 20-year-old Gyimah was on the wing. Plus, all of Henry, Tahid and Bakare came off the bench at the same time, all of them once again being 21 years old or younger.

“I’m really proud of a lot of the young players and the first professional games they’ve played,” Ghotbi said. “The average age of the team was under 23 at the start of the game, and I think that’s what this league is about, is trying to develop young players, as many local and Canadian players as possible to help them become professionals. These experiences are invaluable to their future.”

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Carl Haworth, Atlético Ottawa

The captain made a triumphant return to the starting lineup and was one of Atleti’s most dangerous players on Saturday, ruthlessly attacking the right flank. He won a team-high 10 out of 13 duels, creating three chances and taking two shots on target. Haworth helped create Ottawa’s goal with his original cutback into the box, and was a handful throughout his 60-odd minutes of work.

What’s next?

Vancouver FC have a short turnaround now to return home to Langley, where they’ll take on Forge FC on Tuesday, June 20 (7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET). Ottawa, meanwhile, will have the full week to rest before they too play Forge — in Hamilton on Sunday, June 25 (6 p.m. ET).

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