2021 CPL regular season (The Kickoff) — Match #19
Cavalry FC vs. Atlético Ottawa
July 11, 2021 at 9:00 pm ET/8:00 pm CT
IG Field in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca
STARTING LINEUPS:
Cavalry FC: Marco Carducci, Daan Klomp, Daniel Kaiser, Ali Musse, Joseph Di Chiara, Victor Loturi, Ahinga Selemani, Mohamed Farsi, Richard Luca, David Norman Jr., Karifa Yao
Atlético Ottawa: Dylon Powley, Drew Beckie, Milovan Kapor, Brandon John, Viti Martinez, Chris Mannella, Ben McKendry, Zach Verhoven, Miguel Acosta, Malcolm Shaw, Rafael Nunez
MATCH PREVIEW
After a 2-0 loss to Forge FC in midweek, their first defeat of the season, Cavalry will try to bounce back on Sunday against an Atlético Ottawa side hoping to snap a three-game losing streak.
This will be the second match between these teams this season. Cavalry beat Ottawa 4-1 on June 30th, thanks to a pair of goals from Ahinga Selemani, as well as a couple of late strikes from Victor Loturi and Elliot Simmons. Miguel Acosta scored the lone goal for Ottawa on the night, a brilliant run into the box to get the ball back from Malcolm Shaw and fire it home.
Overall, Cavalry are 2-1-1 thus far, while Atlético are 1-0-3. The CPL’s newest club haven’t been blown out in their other two losses, but they often looked second-best against Valour and Pacific, and were ultimately punished for it. Despite having the best preseason of any club in the CPL, that hasn’t seemed to translate to the season itself — they seem to be lacking cohesion when attacking, and are struggling to score goals as a result.
Their only other goal, a late winner from Viti Martinez in their season opener against FC Edmonton, was also a brilliant goal — and is responsible for their only points thus far. Apart from those two moments of magic, Ottawa have looked rusty in attack, a situation made worse by key player Ryan Telfer leaving the bubble to play for Trinidad and Tobago at the Gold Cup.
It isn’t time to press the panic button for Mista’s side just yet, but he wants to improve his side’s attack as soon as possible, especially on the mental side of things.
“I think it’s more mental,” he said ahead of Sunday’s contest. “We need to create the confidence in our side. When you lose a game, everything seems like it’s wrong — sometimes we make a mistake and lose the game and think everything is bad, but that’s not the reality.
“We need to improve, especially the attack because we need to make more chances to try to score goals. We need to take more responsibility when we have the ball because they (his players) are very good with the ball, but sometimes when you make a mistake the confidence is very bad. We need to recover and think that everything will be positive.”
Something that all eight clubs are dealing with at the moment is fatigue, especially now that each club has played 4-5 times in the span of two weeks. Each team has played their other four opponents for The Kickoff once already, so teams will also start to have a bit of an idea of what each other look like, and perhaps how to beat them. Ottawa will be the first team that Cavalry have played twice, and vice-versa.
“I think they’ll have probably watched [Cavalry’s 2-0 loss to Forge midweek] and thought that’s how Forge cut us open, and I imagine that’s how they’re going to try and get at us. Perhaps now, because we beat them convincingly in the last game, that shoe is on the other foot. I think it’s going to be a very cagey match — that’s what we’re talking about with our guys is being ready to suffer, and to deal with things that aren’t always going to go our way.
“That’s how good teams are made — it doesn’t always have to be pretty, sometimes you have to roll the sleeves up and be gritty as well. We think they’ll give us a tougher test the second time through, because now they’ve played us, now they’ll have a better understanding of how to prevent, and how to try and penetrate.”
3 THINGS TO WATCH: