2025 CPL Regular Season — Match #2
Forge FC vs. Cavalry FC
April 5, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. MT
Hamilton Stadium in Hamilton, Ontario
Watch Live: TSN 2, OneSoccer // Tickets available here

Bitter rivals Forge FC and Cavalry FC are no strangers to kicking off their seasons against one another in Hamilton, as this is their third straight meeting on the league’s opening day.

This time, however, the usual script is flipped. It is Cavalry, not Forge, who come into the year as the reigning North Star Cup champions following a 2-1 victory against the Hamilton club in the 2024 Final at ATCO Field in Calgary.

Forge, however, do still enter 2025 as the CPL’s defending regular season champions, with both teams carrying those respective belts into Saturday’s heavyweight bout, their 33rd all-time meeting in all competitions.

Saturday’s match will also be the first CPL game to air on TSN as part of a new partnership between the national sports broadcaster and OneSoccer.

“I love these games, because they bring the best, and sometimes the worst, out of all of us,” said Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. “But they’re terrific games, and you know now that’s being televised nationally, I think it’s a good advert for the league.”

RELATED: 2025 CPL Season Preview: Forge FC | ‘You want to win trophies’: Forge FC goalkeeper Jassem Koleilat looking to carry on club’s legacy of success

As a reward for their success last season, both clubs have already been in action in 2025, competing in the Concacaf Champions Cup in early February. Cavalry made history as the first CPL club to win a match in the competition, defeating Liga MX side Pumas 2-1 in the first leg, but ultimately lost the tie 3-2. Forge, meanwhile, suffered a more humbling 5-0 result on aggregate against CF Monterrey.

Five months after the two sides last met, in the 2024 CPL Final, Cavalry’s team will likely look very similar. Just one player, albeit an important one in 2024 Defender of the Year Daan Klomp, did not return to the club from their starting XI in that match. In total, some 20 players from the championship side return for 2025. 

Forge, on the other hand, have seen a bit more turnover than usual this off-season. Their Champions Cup starting eleven had five new players acquired this off-season: right-back Rezart Rama, left-back Marko Jevremović, central defender Dan Nimick and attackers Mo Babouli and Brian Wright. 

“It’s an exciting group,” said Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis. “A lot of familiar faces, but a lot of new players, a lot of new players that can bring something special to this team.”

The reigning CPL Players’ Player of the Year, Wright, has been particularly prolific against Cavalry over the years, with his five goals and four assists the most he has managed against any CPL club. Cavalry players are certainly cognizant of this, as they awarded him the most points (69, seven first-place votes) of any club during Players’ Player of the Year voting this past season, with his name appearing on 23 Cavalry ballots. 

Cavalry look to change a unique piece of club history on Saturday, as they have never won a Canadian Premier League match in April. They have also never defeated Forge on the opening day of the season (two draws, one loss). 

RELATED: 2025 CPL Season Preview: Cavalry FC | Carducci: Winning CPL championship ‘fuelled the fire’ for more at Cavalry in 2025

Last season, they started the year especially slow. Cavalry won just two of their first twelve games in 2024 — eight of which were draws. While they ultimately finished second in the table behind Forge, it was the first season in club history in which they never occupied the top spot in the table even once during the campaign. If their ambitions for 2025 are to be realized, a better start to the season is a must.

For Forge, meanwhile, last year’s 2-1 victory over Cavalry was the first time they won their opening match of a CPL season. They have conceded first in all six season opening matches in their history, including the league’s first-ever goal scored by York’s Ryan Telfer on April 27, 2019.

Can Forge begin the season with a measure of revenge for the 2024 Final? Or will Cavalry FC pick up the 2025 season where they left off in 2024, with a statement victory over their Hamilton rivals?

All CPL matches are available to stream on OneSoccer, FuboTV, or on TELUS Optik TV Channel 980.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Both clubs begin 2025 season looking to raise the bar:  If Forge FC and Cavalry are any evidence, it’s that winning doesn’t get tiring, it just increases the desire to want to do it more. Forge begin the season desperate to reclaim the North Star Cup, as well as finally capturing an illusive Canadian Championship. For Cavalry, meanwhile, they at long last tasted the champagne of victory in a CPL Final. Now, they want more. “We want to chase more trophies, we want to chase new records,” said Wheeldon Jr. “And I think that’s the exciting thing, when you return back to the season”. Neither club is quiet about their ambitions heading into the 2025 season — and it is that mentality which has led to so much historic success.

• Fresh off a contract extension, can Tobias Warschewski continue outstanding goalscoring record?: As the Canadian Premier League’s Golden Boot winner last season, and after winning the 2024 CPL Final MVP, the German striker’s prolific record in front of goal isn’t exactly a secret. In his most recent stretch of matches, however, dating back to the last few weeks of the 2024 regular season, Warschewski has been nearly unstoppable. He has scored eight times in his last seven matches played across all competitions — starting this year in top form as well with a stunning strike against Pumas in the first leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup series. That stretch includes two huge goals against Forge — the match winner against the Hamilton club in the 2024 playoff qualifying semi-final, and the opener from the penalty spot in the 2024 final. “He’s a player that if I’m a fan I want to go watch,” said Wheeldon Jr. “You know, if I’m a coach, he can drive me mad at times, but he’s an artist…the bigger the game, the better he wants to play in it.”

• Can Forge build off last season’s historic home record?: There is no doubt that Forge FC’s 2024 CPL regular season title was built at home. They won 11 of 14 matches at home, and managed 34 points at Hamilton Stadium — both club records, and just one fewer than the single-season CPL record for home points set by Cavalry in 2019. That was ten more points than any other club managed at home last season. If Forge want to reach similar heights in 2025, maintaining Hamilton Stadium as a fortress remains vital, and that begins Saturday against Cavalry.

PROJECTED STARTING XIs

Forge FC: Koleilat; Rama, Nimick, Achinioti-Jönsson, Jevremović; Hojabrpour, Bekker, Borges; Choinière, Babouli, Wright

Cavalry FC: Carducci; Aird, Kobza, Montgomery, Kamdem; Daley, Shome; Musse, Camargo, Elva; Warschewski

ALL-TIME SERIES

Forge FC wins: 14 || Cavalry FC wins: 10 || Draws: 8

Last meeting:

Nov 9., 2024 — Cavalry FC 2-1 Forge FC (2024 CPL Final)

KEY QUOTES

“The beauty of these games is both teams don’t know much about each other, for all the games that are happening on opening day across the league. That’s the beauty of it. That’s the excitement of it for players, for coaches and all the fans.” — Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis

“It’s shown that teams that have success at home give themselves a better opportunity to have success in the league. And last year, we made a big commitment to do that…this year is no different, there’s a huge push to continue to have success here at home, in front of these great fans.” — Forge FC captain Kyle Bekker

“Listen, they’ve signed well, Babouli is no stranger to Forge and Bobby and how they want to play, nor is Rezart Rama. But they’ve signed a new fullback, signed Dan Nimick, Brian Wright was [Players’] Player of the Year. So they’ve signed well and I’m sure they’ve been working on how that works, so, like every time were play them, we know that they come with threats. But they also have some openings that we can attack as well.” — Cavalry FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr.

“”From day one we want to win titles. We want titles like, for example the Canadian Championship, no CPL team has won [it]. I think we’re hungry for the title, and we know how it feels now to win a title, and you get hungry for more. If I’m being honest, this feeling after winning the North Star Cup was an amazing feeling, and I want to have this feeling again this year.” — Cavalry FC striker Tobias Warschewski