2024 CPL Regular Season — Match #103
Valour FC vs. Forge FC
October 6, 2024 at 2 p.m. CT/3 p.m. ET
Princess Auto Stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca & TELUS Ch. 980 // Tickets available here

For the first time all Canadian Premier League season, silverware is in play this week, as Forge FC are in a position to clinch the CPL Shield.

If they pick up a win, or if Atlético Ottawa drop any points, the Shield will be heading to Hamilton, while also confirming Forge’s participation in the Concacaf Champions Cup for a third time in four seasons.

Should Forge find that win, however, their road goes through Winnipeg, where an in-form Valour side awaits them at Princess Auto Stadium on Sunday.

A stadium where Forge has struggled to win in recent years, sitting with a record of 1w-0D-6L (3 PTS) in their last seven visits to Winnipeg, it won’t be an easy game for the league leaders, however.

Sitting undefeated in five straight games, and with just two losses in their last 11 games, Valour have found their stride at the perfect time, and that’s thrust them back into the middle of the race for the CPL’s fifth and final playoff spot.

Ideally, they’d like to be picking up more wins (they have four wins across that 11-game run), but they’re picking up points, and that’s allowed them to quietly push up the table.

Currently just one point behind fifth-place Pacific heading into this 26th matchday, Valour will see this match as an excellent opportunity to jump into a playoff spot, even if they’ll need some help elsewhere with Pacific hosting Cavalry on Saturday.

“We’re in this fight, now you want to cross that line,” Valour’s head coach, Phil Dos Santos. “You want to you want to finish the job, you want to finish strong, and that’s where our mindset is.”

As for Forge, however, they want to keep their good times rolling, entering this game as the most in-form team in the CPL.

Sitting with four wins in their last five games, they’re the only CPL team to accumulate double digit points in their last five games, which has allowed them to carve out a seven point lead atop the table.

Now, all that’s left for them to put the bow on a strong regular season is to secure the CPL Shield, marking the second-ever time they’ve finished atop the regular season standings after also doing so in 2021.

In terms of player availability, Valour will be without Joe Hanson and Zachary Sukunda due to injuries – Forge didn’t issue an update on their squad but have been without Terran Campbell in recent weeks, missed Tristan Borges last weekend, and saw Elimane Cissé come off injured early in their last match, so it remains to be seen how much of that trio will be available.

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

• Can Valour continue to build home form and deny Forge a title celebration? After losing a pair of home games in August, Valour did well to pick up more home points in September, drawing two games before picking up a massive win over Pacific last weekend. Their first home win since August 17th, they’ll want to build on that, as they’ll play two of their last three games at home, and will look to pick up wins in those two games. That starts this weekend, but they know it won’t be easy. At the same time, they’ve got a pretty big motivating factor to push them – they’ll want to avoid letting Forge celebrate the CPL Shield on their pitch, something they can do with a win. Valour won’t be able to deny them outright of the Shield this weekend with a win – Ottawa failing to win later on Sunday against York will also do the trick – but they’ll be able to at least ensure Forge won’t know they clinch until well after the game ends and they’ve left the stadium. Of course, Valour will have other motivating factors to want to win, especially given the nature of the CPL’s playoff race and where they stand in that picture, but this will be a bonus factor to help spur them on. On the flipside, it’s also important to remember that Forge will have plenty of reasons to want to clinch the title at Princess Auto Stadium, especially given their past struggles there, so don’t discount how much it might mean for them to get that over the line in this game.

• Valour looking to ride momentum of clean sheet: For the first time since July 28th, Valour picked up a clean sheet in their win over Pacific this past weekend, snapping a run of eight games without one. That’s key, as that guaranteed them the chance at earning points, and in the end, they were able to turn one point into three as they found a late winner via a Pacific own goal. That was key, because for as good as they’ve been at avoiding losses recently, they’ve also dropped a lot of points in draws, having entered this recent Pacific game on a run of four straight draws. While that’s helped them not lose too much ground in the playoff race, those missed points have still proven costly. Yet, one can only wonder what a clean sheet could’ve done in any of those draws, as they scored in each of those games, but were unable to keep their net empty. Of course, it’s also important to remember that it’s never easy to keep clean sheets at any level, as it requires a degree of perfection that’s hard for any team to maintain over the course of 90 minutes, so it’ll please Valour that they’ve only allowed 10 goals across their last 10 games, showing that they’ve been at least keeping teams to no more than a goal on average. At the same time, given how close they are to keeping opponents to less than that, look for them to push for some more clean sheets to end the year. “We haven’t conceded much lately,” Dos Santos said. “I think that the team defensively has found a groove, we’ve been cohesive, but always allowing one goal in a game here and there, so it was important to go into the game knowing that we could get the clean sheet, and our clean sheet wasn’t something that we obtained in the game, we obtained it through training during that week.”

• Forge’s depth scoring continues to be an asset: No matter who they have starting, Forge has continued to fill the net this season, as they now have 44 goals in 25 CPL games. They showed that last weekend, as on a cagey matchday where just five goals were scored across the league, they still found the net twice in a 2-0 win over York United. Yet, that’s a credit to the depth they’ve got in the attack, as they’ve had 14 different goalscorers on the year, including eight who have scored two or more and four who have scored five or more. Over the course of a long season, one where they’ve had to juggle playing in multiple competitions, having that variety of goalscoring depth has proven to be a huge asset, helping them deal with the challenges of their tough schedule. Now, at a time of the year where goals seem to dwindle, as opponents tighten things up defensively given what’s at stake, having that variety of goalscoring depth can go a long way for them. Therefore, look for them to lean on some of those names, including Tristan Borges (eight goals), David Choinière (five goals), Noah Jensen (five goals) and Béni Badibanga (four goals) to step up, especially as they continue to figure out their best attacking group after the departure of Kwasi Poku (eight goals). Given that they’ve seemed to find goals no matter who’s starting, they won’t be worried, but they will want to avoid seeing these goals dry up right as the playoffs approach.