Ahead of a key match on Sunday between the Canadian Premier League’s top two teams of the 2022 season, Atlético Ottawa head coach Carlos González said his club couldn’t allow Forge FC — which has lost four of their last five games — to get their mojo back with a win against his side.
Unfortunately for Atlético, it happened.
Forge FC have started turning the tides on one of their worst runs ever. After three straight losses and going winless in their last five league matches, the Hamilton club jumped back into second place in the CPL standings after a 4-3 home win over Ottawa.
The win boosted Forge FC’s win-draw-loss record of 5-4-4 (19 points), putting last season’s league champion alone in the No. 2 spot behind first-place Pacific FC (7-3-1 and 24 points).
Meanwhile, Ottawa — runner-up to Forge FC in 2022 — suffered their sixth loss of the season, already surpassing last season’s total of five losses. Atlético fell to a lowly record of 3-2-6 (11 points) and stands seventh in the eight-team league.
The exhilarating June 25 match played at Hamilton’s Tim Hortons Field had a bit of everything.
Atlético drew first blood, scoring the second fastest goal in CPL history to give the visitors some much needed momentum. Just 23 seconds into the match, 19-year-old Gabriel Antinoro controlled a long throw-in from his teammate at the edge of the box before dribbling past two defenders and flicking it past Forge goalkeeper Triston Henry’s head to score his first career CPL goal.
Ottawa had not scored a goal from open play against Forge in their last two matches. They certainly didn’t take long to find the net on Sunday.
However, Atlético’s record-setting momentum evaporated quickly.
Barely three minutes later, Atlético defender Macdonald Niba overhit a backward pass to his goalkeeper, Nathan Ingham. Ingham misjudged the ball’s flight path and couldn’t control it, which resulted in an own goal to erase Ottawa’s early lead. It was Forge’s first goal in 274 minutes and it sparked an offensive explosion by the home side.
‘We have to work on those mistakes because every single game we are doing very good things, but in too many games we are conceding goals and situations we shouldn’t and are going home with less points.
— Carlos González, Atlético Ottawa head coach
Atlético’s struggles to pass it back to their keeper continued.
Not even 11 minutes into the match, veteran defender Maxim Tissot didn’t put enough power on a backward pass to Ingham. This allowed Forge forward Woobens Pacius to intercept the ball. In open space, he displayed the vision and composure required to deliver a low-driven cross under Ingham — who left his six-yard box to challenge — to his Forge teammate, forward Terran
Campbell, who slid the ball into an empty net secure a 2-1 lead.
Ottawa had given Forge two gifts and surrendered a fastest-ever lead in arguably the wildest opening 11 minutes in CPL history. But Forge’s offence wasn’t done yet.
Right after the 30-minute mark, Forge was able to double their advantage with excellent build-up play and brilliant passing against the run of play.
A brilliant run to the byline by Forge fullback Dominic Samuel forced an additional Atlético defender to press him. He calmly passed it back outside the box to midfielder Kyle Bekker who used his sharp vision to send a gorgeous cross to Daniel Borges. Unmarked, Borges ran into open space between two Atlético defenders, received the ball and calmly took two touches before crossing it across to the box to Campbell, who netted his second of the game and fourth of the year.
Forge led 3-1 after 32 minutes, but it could’ve been even worse at halftime with all the high-quality scoring chances Forge created.
However, multiple game-saving clearances from Atlético’s defence and a handful of huge saves by Ingham kept the deficit at two.
Ottawa outscored Hamilton 2-1 in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the disastrous first half.
González believed his team should’ve come away with at least a point, but recognized his team’s mistakes put them at a serious disadvantage.
“I think there were enough merits to grab a point at least, but it’s true in certain moments today we were not competing as we should’ve,” he said.
“We have to work on those mistakes because every single game we are doing very good things, but in too many games we are conceding goals and situations we shouldn’t and are going home with less points,” González said in his post-game comments.
Concentration, attention to detail and limiting mistakes have been Ottawa’s focus all season. They showed improvement recently in their two consecutive home wins, but regressed and made too many mistakes against Forge.
Atlético did turn it around in the second half, thanks in part to a tactical change and a triple substitution to match certain aspects of Forge’s setup, including Forge’s speed down the flanks. González added wingers Jean-Aniel Assi and Gianni Dos Santos and put Zakaria Bahous into midfield in place of Noah Verhoeven to open up more space to attack.
It worked wonders. Atlético had longer spells of possession in the second half, at times were the
better side, were more secure with their passing and created several quality scoring chances, many in transition.
Under 20 minutes into the second half, their hard work paid off. A marvelous free kick by Maxim Tissot from deep outside the box curled its way into the side netting and brought Ottawa back to within one at 3-2.
Tissot’s goal gave his team the energy and momentum needed to crawl their way back into the match. Less than eight minutes later, forward Gianni Dos Santos found himself with just enough space on the edge of the box to strike the ball into the bottom corner of Forge’s net to finish off a brilliant passing sequence by Atlético.
The score was tied 3-3. But it didn’t last long.
Another cross into Atlético’s box would be their downfall. Forge substitute Kwasi Poku had the pace to burst down the left wing with the ball, crossing it to his open teammate, Woobens Pacius, who was left unmarked and jumped into the air for a ferocious header to seal Forge’s win.
González explained after the match that his team was unable to overcome Forge’s tactics to execute their gameplan.
“They were matching all our players, playing 4-2-3-1 against our, system and it was man-to-man everywhere,” González said. “And we were not winning duels, so … we decided to change the system to look for superiorities, to create from there and find the spaces that we wanted to in the game plan. I think it worked, but at the end of the day we (gave) up the game twice.”
Atlético had a hot start, but then nobody to blame but themselves for conceding two early, sloppy goals. Maxim Tissot took responsibility for conceding the second goal with his failed back pass.
“The second goal we conceded is on me … as a leader you do have a bit of extra responsibility.”
Forge FC head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said post game that he’ll take the win and the four goals, but not much else. He was happy about his team’s response after a 2-0 loss to Vancouver FC.
“It’s three points and (four) goals; what happened in between, we’ll leave it for another day,” Smyrniotis said. “Obviously this is three points we needed. We’ve never gone this long without a win. I think last year again was five games and after that everything was great, so hopefully we can repeat history.”
Atlético has a chance to get back in the win column on Friday, June 30 when they face first-place Pacific FC.
