Cavalry’s dream debut season didn’t quite have the Hollywood finish.
Forge FC clipped the spring and fall season champion Cavalry FC 1-0 on Saturday at Spruce Meadows’ ATCO Field to take the inaugural Canadian Premier League finals 2-0 on aggregate.
“It’s a goal we set for ourselves at the very beginning of the season and I think it’s just a culmination of everything the team has bought into,” said Forge captain Kyle Bekker. “We just tried to grow as the season has gone on and got hot at the end of the season and always believed this was going to be our championship.
“Defensively, we made it tough for them, we got back into a block, started working for each other and we got very compact. We didn’t really give them the spaces that they’ve exploited throughout the season.”
Forge left victorious after keeping the top scoring team in the CPL off the board over 180 minutes in the two-leg championship.
“We’re league champions if you look at it that way, anywhere else in the world, the spring, fall, overall league champions,” said Cavs head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. “And today we got beat in the CPL finals. I couldn’t be prouder of the players… we didn’t quit, we never got blown out in any game, every battle we were always in and every game we played with everything we had.
“That’s how we should be remembered. It will sting for a while, but (the players) will appreciate everything they’ve done this year.”
The first half saw little in the way of scoring opportunities with the Cavalry doing a lot of their work on the set piece and owning 58 per cent of the possession along with 5 shots on target to Forge’s 2.
Striker Dominique Malonga had the best chance in the 18th minute with a free header in the box that just curled over the net. Dominick Zator on a free-kick also came close but the centre back also headed over the goal in the 36th minute.
One way traffic played out in the second half with Forge looking to park the bus, keep everyone behind the ball and see out the result on aggregate.
Despite the heavy edge in Cavalry possession, it proved to be a winning strategy.
“We couldn’t score, simple as that,” said Cavalry captain Nik Ledgerwood. “We had 90 minutes to put the ball in the back of the net and it didn’t happen, for whatever reason, maybe it was a little bit of quality at the end of the day, a bounce or two that didn’t go our way.”
Goalkeeper Triston Henry was forced into a pair of massive save in the late stages of the second half when Sergio Camargo had his deft deflection in front of goal well saved then Zator’s long shot from just outside of the box was turned aside by the outstretched Forge shot-stopper just two minutes later.
“It’s just a matter of staying locked into the game,” Henry said. “We had to make sure we defend well. If they didn’t score they had no chance to win so we just had to make sure to stay focused on the back and kept a zero there and that helped to get the championship.”
The saves would prove crucial. With the Cavalry sending everyone up the field in the final minutes, the visitors would hit back on the counter in extra-time.
David Choinière scored in the fourth minute of extra-time on a 2-on-0 break with a helpless Marco Carducci left alone to defend his goal.
“A goal sends it into penalties for us so, again, we were throwing everything at them,” Carducci said. “We had to go for it so obviously getting caught on the counter like that.
“It’s a tough feeling, it’s going to hurt, it’s painful right now, but you look back on the season and obviously there’s a lot of great moments.”
Forge took the first game of the CPL two-leg championship 1-0 on Oct. 26 in Hamilton on a Tristan Borges marker.
“It’s really disappointing to not get it today, it felt like it was coming for us,” said Cavs centre back Mason Trafford. “I thought we were going to get one and at least take it to penalties. We definitely showed up tonight much better than we did in Hamilton and we can be proud of that and I think we can be proud of our season.
“It’s tough, it comes down to two games and it’s a little bit more up to chance and little situations and decisions that way over two games rather than 28 (in the regular season). Credit to Forge.”
Borges was handed a red card in the first game, but Canada Soccer reversed the ruling allowing the talismanic attacker to play in the reverse fixture. The Cavs were without the services of centre-back Joel Waterman, whose red card from the first leg was upheld through the appeal process.
“We’re champions because of the whole team, it was a team effort,” Borges said. “To play here, (Cavalry) have a great team, they have a great atmosphere and I keep saying this but it’s all love, it’s all competition.
“They’re very aggressive when they play, they give it 100 per cent and we knew they were going to do that and last three games we matched that.”
The two finalists established themselves as the class of the seven-team CPL.
Cavalry and Forge played nine times during the 2019 campaign all of which were decided by one goal or less.
“Next year there’s going to be a lot of teams that will want to de-throne us and compete a lot harder,” Bekker said. “But as and Cavalry I think is always going to be there, we have two competitive teams and we’ve had some unbelievable fights throughout the season so I think it was only right that you had us in the final in the first year and we’re happy we came out on top.”
One silver lining for the Cavalry is the foundation of professional soccer culture at Spruce Meadows. The Foot Soldiers earned plaudits from coast-to-coast for creating a fortress like atmosphere at ATCO Field.
The fan culture is just one of several highs for the Cavalry and the league as a whole through year one.
“It’s a hard one to swallow, especially here in front of our home fans, they were absolutely unbelievable today,” said Ledgerwood. “It was one of those where you wish it went the other way, but looking around the stadium at the end of the game, before the game, what we’ve built here as a team, a staff, Spruce Meadows, a league, I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of it.”
