It’s been over a decade now, so a lot of Forge fans might not remember—or even know—that Hamilton Stadium was originally constructed to attract high-impact soccer.
Just like we’ll see on Saturday when the Hammers host Atlético Ottawa in the opening game of the Canadian Premier League’s eighth season.
Two of Saturday’s star attacking players—one for each side—were teammates way back then, on the first formal day of soccer played at Hamilton Stadium which had been built to host the entire men’s and women’s tournaments of the 2015 Toronto Pan-Am Games.
Forge’s Mo Babouli and Atléti’s Manny Aparicio played for Canada in the Pan-Ams and they’ll face each other in a rematch of last year’s CPL semi-final which Ottawa won 2-1 on their way to their first league championship.
“What I remember is that we had a good little team,” says the 33-year-old Babouli, the multi-skilled forward who’s in the second season of his second stint with Forge.
“A few of the boys from that Canadian team are still playing now.
“The crowds were really big. Back in 2015, from the players’ perspective, I don’t think anyone really knew there would be a league like the CPL coming along…and the old Canadian Soccer League was still going on too.
“I’m back here, playing full-time…so it’s all come full circle.”
In a tidy bit of foreshadowing of timely marksmanship, Babouli scored Canada’s only goal of that tournament, and it came on the very first day of competition, in the 58th minute, to close the score to 3-1 and throw a scare into powerful Brazil which went on to capture the bronze medal.
At the time, Babouli was 22 and riding his first professional contract, signed only four months earlier with Toronto FC, which had him on their No. 2 team, playing in its inaugural year in the United Soccer League. The previous season he’d been with TFC III in the debut year of semi-pro League1 Ontario, leading the league in scoring with 27 goals across all competitions, and was named league MVP as TFC Academy went on to win the Inter-Provincial Cup against Quebec champs CS Longueuil.
Reading his thick career scoring resumé and watching him work the final third of the pitch like he’s painting a cathedral ceiling, it would be easy to assume that Babouli was born with a soccer ball growing out of his instep. That he had generations of soccer chromosomes influencing his career choice. But nothing could be further from the truth.
He comes from a Syrian family who were living in Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates before emigrating to Mississauga and although he fell in love with the Beautiful Game when he was young, he did not play organized soccer until he was 12 years old. Most of his age group at Dixie Soccer Club had been playing for years by then.
“It was late to get started,” he says. “My family was very education-oriented so the focus was on that. I was always interested in soccer but I grew up playing it only in parks or in schoolyards with all my friends.
“I was playing since I was a kid but it was all pickup soccer until I started with Dixie. Then it started to work out.”
He had decided to follow the NCAA Division I scholarship pathway, which started with two years playing for Sheridan College Bruins, and the Oakville college won the national title in 2014 “but I didn’t like the whole school system so I came back and played for Dixie again in U-21.”
By the time he was 21, he’d been recruited to TFC Academy’s senior side and had the obvious skills and natural talent but still had a lot to learn about positioning and direction on the field. He says his soccer “grew up there” and he occasionally crossed paths with his future coach Bobby Smyrniotis when TFC played Sigma teams in the old Ontario Youth Soccer League.
After his breakout year in League1 Ontario, Babouli inked his pro contract and scored in his first pro game against Charleston Battery in March of 2015. The following season he made Toronto’s MLS side, playing 16 games but was also loaned back to TFC II. He was released in 2017, and joined Smyrniotis with Sigma, scoring in his debut and adding another four goals over the six games he played there.
After the Sigma season ended, he headed for Syria’s Premier League and scored seven goals for Al-Ittihad, which finished second overall. With barely a break, he came back to play winter ball for Mississauga MetroStars of the MASL, the highest level of indoor soccer on the continent, he scored 21 goals in 22 games and was named team captain in the second year.
From there it was over to the Canadian Soccer League’s FC Ukraine United, playing out of Etobicoke, and he slammed home four goals in his first game, finished fourth in league scoring, and found the back of the net in the first two playoff games.
Forge took note and brought Babouli to the Island Games 2020 bubble during the pandemic. He assisted on the game-winning goal of the championship final and was named the Man of the Match. That victory put Hamilton into Concacaf League the following summer and Babouli scored the winning goal in the first leg against CD FAS. In the second round against Costa Rica’s Santos de Guápiles, he propelled Forge to a comeback from a 3-1 first-leg deficit by assisting on Omar Browne’s goal, then scoring the away goal which would give Forge a berth in the 2022 Champions Cup, the first time a CPL team had ever earned a berth in the continent’s premier club competition.
He played in the Qatari Second Division, scoring four times in eight games before returning to Canada and joining York United of the CPL in August of 2022, scoring his first goal against ….Forge. He had 19 goals in his 53 games over two-and-a-half seasons with Hamilton’s 905 Derby rivals.
After he signed with Forge in time for last year’s Champions Cup, Babouli headed in the winning goal in the CPL opener against Cavalry, the start of the Hammers’ unprecedented 24-game undefeated streak.
“That meant I was back,” he shrugged, adding that his second year back with the team doesn’t feel much different than it did last year, and “the first year back didn’t feel any different from when I left the first time.
“But I think I’ve matured over the years. I see the game in a different way. As a young kid, especially as an attacking player, you just go out there and try to score, you’re trying to assist, create plays and stuff like that. But now I also have game management. Reactions and defensive duties all feel like part of my maturity.”
At 33, he is Forge’s second-oldest player behind captain Kyle Bekker (35) and says he does a lot of prep work to keep his body and mind healthy, eating and sleeping well and “making sure you’re in good shape and trying to keep the young guys going the same way. They bring out the youth in you.”
“We have some good leaders on the team starting with Beks. The key is in all the little details, all the effort, all the things we want to create as a group in this environment and what we want to achieve here. The football culture at Forge is known by players and whoever comes in has to meet that expectation. There’s a standard.”
When it comes to Saturday’s kickoff against Atlético, some Forge players feel the need for a sense of redemption after last year’s semi-final loss.
But, pointing out that Hamilton had a win and three draws in the four regular-season games with Ottawa, Babouli counters that, “during the season last year I think we had their number in the grand scheme of things. Even in the playoffs I thought we were a bit unlucky with a few calls and a few chances we had, and it’s not that we owe them something. It’s a brand-new season and we know that they’re going to come out there and be energetic and not be afraid of a challenge so we just have to come out and match that and bring our quality.”
In that game he’ll be encountering his long-ago Canada U-21 teammate Manny Aparicio, and they’re among the few Canucks still playing from the team which lost to Brazil and Peru and tied Panama in a tournament which attracted what was then the largest overall audience in Pan-Am soccer history. Raheem Edwards is with TFC, goalkeeper Maxime Crépeau is now at Orlando City and on the men’s national team, Jérémy Gagnon-Laparé is still in Halifax with the Wanderers, Johnny Grant played his first four CPL seasons with Forge and is now in Ottawa and Manjrekar James played for Forge’s 2023 league winners and is currently in New Zealand.
By contrast, all but one of the Brazilian players from that day one game are still playing in pro leagues around the world.
Babouli says he wouldn’t know where to start in prioritizing the most important goals he’s scored in a career that has been full of them:
“I’ve scored some good goals here at Forge, especially in my first stint and especially in Concacaf we’ve had some really big moments.”
But a goal against Brazil? At any level, at any age, at any tournament, let alone an international one, that has a remember-me ring to it. He took a great feed from now-retired Hanson Boakai, gave it a couple of touches and as the keeper came out he got the ball over him. The large crowd, on the first day of official soccer in a new structure which had already become identified more with the other type of football, just exploded.
On Saturday, Babouli will be among the leaders of the most successful franchise in a league built by, and for, Canadians in a stadium where he became the first Canadian to score a goal nearly 12 years ago in a tournament which deserves a brighter spotlight in national soccer history.
“It was built for the Pan-Ams,” he says. “And it created the mystique which has continued.”