2024 CPL Regular Season — Match #109
Halifax Wanderers FC vs. York United FC
October 19, 2024 at 5 p.m. AT/4 p.m. ET
Wanderers Grounds in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Watch Live: YouTube & OneSoccer.ca // Tickets available here

On Oct. 19, all four CPL matches in The Outcome! presented by TonyBet will be played simultaneously at 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT, and will each be available to watch for free at YouTube.com/OneSoccer.

York United travel to Halifax Wanderers in their final regular season game of this edition of the Canadian Premier League, a match that Nine Stripes head coach Benjamin Mora will be hoping his team will use to rediscover their momentum and form.

He is fully aware, though, that a vociferous home fanbase at the Wanderers Grounds make for a tough combination that has undone even the best of teams: just ask Forge FC coach Bobby Smyrniotis, whose team succumbed to a 3-0 defeat the last time they travelled to Nova Scotia.

While Mora and Co. will be busy preparing for their knockout game on 23 October, Halifax have not qualified for the next stage of the competition, and head coach Patrice Gheisar is looking to take stock of where his side can improve ahead of next season.

This weekend is the first time The Outcome! presented by TonyBet is in effect: all of the teams will play each other at the same time, with all of the games available to supporters to watch for free on YouTube. Gheisar, for one, is a big proponent of the rule, and says it will bring more fairness to the game.

RELATED: The Outcome! presented by TonyBet: All you need to know about the CPL’s regular season grand finale

“I was one of the first guys complaining last year, because we were playing on a Friday and everyone played on the Sunday, so I was like, how is that fair?” he said in his pre-match press conference. “I think it is a great initiative, it’s a great idea. I mean, we all realise that we are part of a growing league, but it makes me really proud to see us input a new initiative every year. That makes the game better for the fans, better for the players and better for the organization.” 

Despite being rooted to the bottom of the table, Halifax have one of the best home records in the country, and Gheisar is hoping he can bank on that record to undo York United, finish the season on a high, and improve on the hosts’ 6-9-12 record this season.

Ahead of their playoff game on Wednesday, Mora is looking to play a mix of youth and experience to make sure his key players remain in form, while his younger charges get some valuable game time. With an 11-6-10 record this season, the side from northern Toronto remain locked in fourth place, and in terms of results, this game is a dead rubber for them.

RELATED: CPL Newsroom pres. by Volkswagen: Playoff race comes down to season finale! (+ CanMNT recap)

“We need to practice and we need to train in a proper way: our system, our ways, our model and of course, the performance of the boys,” he said, speaking to the media. “So it’s going to be a normal game for us, it is going to be a game that we want to win. But yes, of course I’m going to make a lot of changes, and I’m going to give time to people that have not had a lot of time.”

York United have a full roster to choose from, with the exception of versatile defender Noah Abatneh, for whom this game comes a little too soon as he recovers from injury. Halifax, on the other hand, are without the services of midfielder Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé and defender Zachary Fernandez, both of whom are serving suspensions.

One final wrinkle for Halifax is that the club remains 125 short of the required 2,000 domestic U-21 minutes. They’ll need to fill that quota on Saturday, likely via the services of Tiago Coimbra and Jefferson Alphonse.

All CPL and Canadian Championship matches will be broadcast live on OneSoccer, available as a linear channel on Telus’ Optik TV (Channel 980) as well as online at OneSoccer.ca, through the OneSoccer app and on the fuboTV Canada platform.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Is The Outcome – a historic first For the first time in the history of the Canadian Premier League, all of the games on the final day of the season will be played at the same time. In doing so, the CPL is following the footsteps of many leagues around the world, where this practice is the norm. While Halifax head coach Gheisar is happy it will improve the fairness of the league, both him and his opposite number Mora are happy it will make the CPL a more entertaining product for the fans. “It’s one of those things that everybody is excited about: everyone is going to be on the radio and phone and TV, trying to catch all the four games going back and forth, so I’m excited to be a part of it,” said Gheisar. Mora added, “The modern times of globalization and how to watch things in our lives permit us to have many options, so the fans will choose whether to watch on YouTube, or OneSoccer, or live, so we will receive whoever wants to come, and we will fight for whoever is watching us on TV.”

• Benjamin Mora is relishing the short turnaround time: York United’s first playoff game comes just four days after they travel to Atlantic Canada. Should they win that game, their next playoff match is set for next weekend, and he is excited to re-enter the action despite the relatively short turnaround time. At the time of writing, the fifth and final playoff position is still undecided, with Pacific, Valour, and Vancouver all in with a shout. “I love the competition, that’s it. I love to compete. I love to be able to execute a plan. I love the chess game, I love the strategy. I love to be better than the opponent. So of course, I will compete in my life, and I do that in my personal life, I do that in other hobbies that I have. Life is about winning: that is a luxury of sorts. Of course, it is not about me as well, but it is about what the players need. If I could make a decision, I’d want to have a game every day. It is stressful in [terms of] the levels of stress hormones and of course, cortisol [levels] can go very high. So every human being needs to relax and needs to get back to their initial position physically, in order to execute and perform again.”

• Halifax committed to rediscovering consistency over the summer: This season, Halifax are a far cry from the team that finished in third place last time around, above both York United and Atlético Ottawa, before being eliminated in the quarterfinals of the playoff round. Patrice Gheisar knows his team fell well short of the mark this time and is going to spend the off-season finding out why. “There’s quite a bit of it: there’s not just one thing to detail out. But I think, you look at the season, we had a poor start and then we had a spike, then we dropped again, and we picked that up again. If there’s one thing, we need to challenge ourselves with, [it is] an overall consistency. I think before the Cavalry game, we had one loss in eight games, and it makes me proud of the group that we did that, but it makes me wonder why we couldn’t have put that forward for most of the season, so consistency will be a big message for us in the off-season.”

PROJECTED STARTING XIs

Halifax Wanderers FC: Fillion; Bayiha, Nimick, Mekideche, Ferrazzo; Rampersad, Callegari, Telfer, Dias, Probo; Coimbra

York United FC: Vincensini; Cordova, Higgins, León, Botello; Adekugbe, Martínez, Baldisimo; Jimoh, Wright, Guzmán

ALL-TIME SERIES

Halifax Wanderers wins: 6 || York United wins: 7 || Draws: 9

Last meeting:

Sept. 2, 2024 – Halifax Wanderers FC 2-1 York United FC

KEY QUOTES

“It’s no secret that we play for them. It’s not a secret. I think we have [among the] top two or top three records at home in this year, and last year, we were top two, so they are our 12th man, you can call it, our extra energy, we love their support, and we’re really sad that we could not bring a playoff game at home again like last year, but that’s what we’ll work towards. Obviously, every player has their career, but we are trying to do everything for them.” – Halifax Wanderers FC head coach Patrice Gheisar (on the support of the club’s fans)

“If I don’t play a player that is going to play in the playoffs, because I want him to rest, he’s going to be resting for 16 days without a game, or around that, and that is not positive. So, we need to be intelligent. We need to mix very well what we need, what the players need, and what the club needs in order to get to the final — I call it the final, because for me, it is a final — in a good shape, and at the closest level to the highest performance.” – York United FC head coach Benjamin Mora (on properly rotating players ahead of the playoffs)