Final Score: Forge FC 1-1 Valour FC
Goalscorers: Campbell 66′; Cela 85′
Game of the 2023 season: 60
CPL match: 427
Match in a minute or less
Forge and Valour ended up all square at Tim Hortons Field on a rainy Saturday night, as a 1-1 scoreline kept both sides in their original place in the standings. The hosts felt like they might be taking all three points, with Terran Campbell’s 66th-minute goal putting them in front (after Campbell already appeared to have scored moments earlier with a strike that was controversially ruled offside). Valour could not be kept down though, as former Forge defender Klaidi Cela got his head on a Kian Williams corner kick to bring the visitors level. That would be all the scoring this game had in it, as Valour head back to Winnipeg with a hard-fought point.
Three Observations
Forge drop points despite late lead, Valour a thorn in the side once again
Sitting in front of the press conference microphone postmatch, Garven Metusala said Forge had this game “in their hands.” Indeed, for large stretches of the match it felt as though if the Hammers took the lead, they would not be likely to relinquish it. This was actually the first time all season that Forge have dropped points from a winning position — having much more often clawed points back when conceding earlier in matches. Forge undoubtedly leave this match feeling aggrieved; on replay, the first ball Terran Campbell put in the net (around the 60-minute mark) was not offside due to Guillaume Pianelli playing him on, so the current Golden Boot leader should likely have had a brace — and the hosts should have had two goals. Plus, the Hammers were left with a particularly bitter taste in their mouths after a shout for a penalty in stoppage time at the end. Nonetheless, Forge are forced to settle for the point, being the side less content with the draw — as the home team usually is. “It was a game that we had in our hands,” Metusala said. “We dominated from the get-go, they didn’t get really any chances. It’s just a moment of lack of concentration. We all know that the game is 90 minutes and it only takes that split moment of focus. That’s what happened, we conceded.” In the Valour camp, it’s certainly a point won rather than two dropped — even Phillip Dos Santos said postmatch he reckoned Forge had been the better side for most of the game. Still, this is yet another instance of the Winnipeg club being a thorn in Forge’s side. Saturday was only their second ever draw against the Hammers, but they’re 7-1-2 in their last 10 league games against a Forge team that has played in every single CPL Final. Klaidi Cela, who spent three years as a Forge player, was the goalscoring hero for Valour on Saturday despite coming in as an injury replacement just before halftime. His header from Kian Williams’ well-placed corner surely makes up for him getting beaten by Terran Campbell in the lead-up to Forge’s goal. In his comments after the game, he credited his team’s adaptability and resolve to find a way back into this match. “It was a nice moment, a little bit bittersweet; I wanted to make up for my previous error,” Cela said. “I think we’ve got a bunch of dogs on this team, and it feels like every time we have a big mountain, the bigger the mountain the more we climb.”
New-look Valour back three adapts twice to early injury changes
Both sides came into this game with a well-defined game plan, but Valour in particular seemed to have drawn up a specific way they wanted to approach Forge, as Phillip Dos Santos arranged his side in a 3-4-3 — quite a different look from the usual 4-3-3 or 4-4-3 they’ve gone with. Valour wanted to play out of the back perhaps more than they might in other games against Forge, while also trying to get their wingbacks — at the start, Matteo De Brienne and Andy Baquero — higher up the pitch to join the attack. Unfortunately for the Winnipeg club, though, that game plan did not last very long in its intended form. De Brienne seemed to injure either his left foot or ankle around the 15-minute mark, and Dos Santos had no choice but to slot Eskander Mzoughi — perhaps a more defensive-minded wingback — into De Brienne’s spot on the left. Just before halftime, the plan went even further awry when Diego Gutiérrez also took a knock and had to leave the game. Dos Santos had to make a more drastic change then, as Klaidi Cela entered to play in the back three, meaning Dante Campbell had to step into midfield from defence. After Gutiérrez left, it became more difficult for Valour to play through midfield. Dos Santos explained postmatch that it wasn’t necessarily the personnel changes that hurt his side’s rhythm, but the disruptions definitely affected their press and tempo. “We lost a little bit of our aggression in our pressure from the front,” Dos Santos said. “That means you won’t have the ball as much. I think this is a game that we probably had the ball less, then you lose two players right away — and two players that have been very important for us during the season — but I don’t dwell on things. It’s always about, what’s next, and that’s how we responded. “Eskander came in, I feel he came in the game very well — can’t forget he’s in his first year of professional football, and I think he did very well. Then we had the [Gutiérrez] one and we had to make another change; these things happen in football, we have to move on and find solutions internally.” The visitors changed shape again later in the affair, with striker Anthony Novak replacing centre-back Andrew Jean-Baptiste around the hour mark to put Valour into more of a 4-4-2, but they had difficulty getting the ball or creating counter-attacking opportunities. Still, the late set-piece was enough for Valour to take a point from the match.
Forge looking like themselves, adapt better to soaked conditions
After a frustrating month of June, the reigning champions have looked far more comfortable lately with last weekend’s 4-0 rout at York United and Saturday’s draw that could well have been a second straight win. This match saw the hosts move the ball very well in the first half — with a whopping 67.5 per cent possession in the opening 45 minutes, 63 passes in the final third and nine shots. Noah Jensen and Kyle Bekker, occupying the advanced places in Forge’s inverted midfield triangle as Alessandro Hojabrpour sat at the base, were both very lively, operating in the half-spaces which helped pin Valour’s back three backward and prevent dangerous passes toward the wingbacks. Valour were forced into playing speculative long balls, which rarely found their mark — even less often than they might have under normal conditions, due to the intense rain and wind at Tim Hortons Field in this game. See below how many of Valour’s unsuccessful passes (of which there were 69) were long attempts out of the back:
Forge, meanwhile, have always been a side that prefers to keep the ball on the ground, which they were able to do with their 65.3 per cent possession over the whole game. They made 477 accurate passes to Valour’s 219 (with a stellar 87.2 per cent accuracy), operating patiently for the most part in an effort to feel out the available spaces — which took some time, considering Valour had thrown a curveball with a defensive shape Forge hadn’t seen them play. Overall, when the rain started coming down in sheets and sideways in the second half, Forge were the team better-equipped to handle the conditions. Not only do they have better familiarity with how the Tim Hortons Field turf plays when slick, but their possession-based, short-passing football is more conducive to success in that situation. They put themselves less at the mercy of the wind by keeping the ball down — although one of the only times they went long was actually David Choinière’s pinpoint ball over the top from the right wing, which took a strange bounce off the wet turf over Klaidi Cela before Terran Campbell finished it. Campbell continuing to score — only once officially, though he put it in the net twice — is excellent news for Forge too, as he took over the Golden Boot lead on Saturday night with his eighth of the year. The CPL’s all-time leading scorer has never quite enjoyed an extended period of goalscoring form since moving to Hamilton, but with seven goals in the last four games things are looking bright for him now. Finishing chances was a major issue for Forge earlier in the campaign, so one of their key centre-forward options starting to look clinical and confident in front of goal is perhaps the most positive thing for the club right now.
CanPL.ca Pla****yer of the Match
Kyle Bekker, Forge FC
The captain was on point for the hosts on Saturday, with a team-high 101 touches, three chances created and 30 passes in the final third. Bekker also won possession seven times and was dangerous with his set-piece delivery throughout the evening.
What’s next?
Forge go back on the road next week, heading out west to Starlight Stadium for a date with Pacific FC on Friday, July 21 (7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET). Valour, meanwhile, will close out next weekend when they host York United at IG Field on Sunday, July 23 (6 p.m. CT/7 p.m. ET). Watch all CPL matches live on OneSoccer. In addition to its website and app, OneSoccer is now available on TELUS channel 980 and on Fubo TV. Call your local cable provider to ask for OneSoccer today.