Until now, it had been all quiet on the western (Ontario) front with regard to roster decisions from Forge FC.

While there’s been a steady trickle of news coming out of most other CPL clubs over the past month, it wasn’t until this week that we heard anything from the champions.

Perhaps they’d been too busy celebrating with the North Star Shield.

On Friday, though, Forge revealed a list of 12 players under contract for next year, with names such as Tristan Borges and Kyle Bekker leaping out immediately, alongside other major contributors from their CPL championship campaign (full list available here).

“We’re trying to keep a good level of consistency going into our second year,” Forge coach Bobby Smyrniotis told CanPL.ca. “These are players who were on multi-year deals, so these are guys that we knew from the beginning before this year that we wanted to build around, to have a good core.”

Smyrniotis added that a few more familiar faces will be joining the list in the coming weeks, with some players still being finalized. It’ll be particularly interesting to see what happens with players such as David Edgar and Anthony Novak.

Already, though, Forge has a heck of a foundation in place for their upcoming title defence.

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After winning Finals 2019, Smyrniotis vocally revelled in the success of his gamble on young Canadian players in attack. He pointed out how players such as Borges, Novak, and Chris Nanco had taken full advantage of opportunities they wouldn’t have found elsewhere, triumphing over other CPL clubs who had gone international with their forward players. It appears that Forge’s 2020 will have a similar look.

“Sometimes we downplay what our players can do here, we’ve got some good goalies and guys who can defend, but sometimes we take those creative positions away from them,” Smyrniotis said.

“I think that was one thing we emphasized this year … It’s genuinely part of my DNA, part of what I believe in.”

Leading the charge, once again, will be Bekker, who answered the bell at every turn in 2019 as captain of a championship team. He played 34 games for the club in year one, scoring five times and adding five assists as perhaps the best attacking midfielder in the league.

“He’s a player who gave us everything we wanted out of the midfield, being able to control the game, controlling tempo of games, being able to switch things and make things go quicker,” Smyrniotis said of his skipper.

“Any team that wants to succeed and win a championship, you need a top leader, and this guy was exactly what you wanted in that dressing room each and every day.”

Also included on the list of returnees was Borges, the CPL’s Golden Boot winner and Player of the Year.

Questions about his future have loomed large for much of this off-season so far, and those queries may not be dispensed with completely, despite this news that he’s signed for Forge through 2020.

Of course, Smyrniotis hopes to have the young star in his lineup come the Spring, but he understands the realities of global football and its transfer market, and he knows how many heads Borges turned in 2019.

“We’re always open to listening to what teams have to come with, and there’s definitely interest in Borges from multiple places, both in this continent and on the other side of the pond,” Smyrniotis affirmed.

“Those are things we’ll listen to, and as things get more serious we’re open to it. I think it’s a world we want to be in and it’s great for him.”

The Forge coach added that a few other players in Hamilton have garnered some attention from other clubs, but he’s nonetheless thrilled to have so much of his core available for next season. With the bulk of his championship-winning roster in place, he’s started to turn his attention toward potentially upgrading his squad, with a couple areas of need singled out.

“We know we can get more goals out of our team for the amount of chances and the amount of play that we dictated in the opponents half, we know that we need to score more goals,” Smyrniotis said. “That’s something that we’ve identified that needs to be better.”

He added: “And also, looking at increasing the depth in the squad. The one thing we saw this year going toward this final was depth was going to be very important to this team. It was going to be very important in a league where everything was based on a two-legged final.”

Forge’s depth played a major role in 2019, helping keep them afloat in the league table during their Concacaf League run (which Smyrniotis mentioned he hopes will last even longer in 2020). They were certainly one of the deepest teams in the league, with players such as Kadell Thomas often able to make an impact off the bench.

“We’re trying to keep a good level of consistency going into our second year,” Smyrniotis stated.

This week’s roster news surely allayed some restlessness among Forge fans, who hadn’t yet heard anything from their club. There’s plenty left to be sorted out, but a list of 12 players who remain signed for next season is a welcome early Christmas gift for Forge supporters.