Forge FC is not taking CS Saint-Laurent lightly. Nor should they. Not respecting your opponent in out-of-league matches is one of the most common sins in soccer and can result in regretful penance.
In the last three years, the north Montréal side from semi-pro Ligue1 Québec has already eliminated two teams from the fully-pro CPL in the TELUS Canadian Championships, and the Hammers do not want to be the third.
Saint-Laurent and Hamilton meet in a home-and-home Canadian Championship quarter-final series Wednesday afternoon in Laval, Quebec (3 p.m., OneSoccer) and Sunday (4 p.m., OneSoccer) at Hamilton Stadium. The winner advances the national semifinal against the survivors of newly-minted CPL rivals Atlético Ottawa and FC Supra Du Québec.
“I feel they’re going to be competitive matches, and we’ll have to play our best games against them,” says Jelani Smith, Forge’s director of soccer operations.
“They have a confident team and a few players who’ve played in the CPL and others who are of CPL calibre.”
Saint-Laurent shocked Inter Toronto 1-0 in May to move on to face Forge, who earned their quarter-final berth with a thorough 4-0 win over HFX Wanderers.
Two years ago, Saint-Laurent, who won the Quebec league title last season, took out the Wanderers in a penalty shootout in the opening round of the national tournament.
Toronto did not field its strongest starting lineup against Saint-Laurent but still had scoring chance after scoring chance. However, Saint-Laurent keeper Martin Cantona, a native of France, made a stunning 13 saves, many of them acrobatic dives, to frustrate Inter.
Cantona is the nephew of Manchester United legend and former French national team captain Eric Cantona.
"He was great and hopefully he doesn’t do the same against us,” Smith said.
Saint-Laurent stands second in its league with seven victories, five draws and a solitary loss, four points back of leaders Ottawa South.
Midfielder Cédric Toussaint, who has been capped by Haiti, played five years in the CPL for York United (renamed Inter Toronto) and Pacific, Matthew Catavolo spent a year with Valour and Zakaria Bahous was with Atlético Ottawa for two years and Pacific for two years.
Catavolo has seven goals in 14 games and Younesse El Mehdi Chibane, who scored the winner against Toronto, has three.
Saint-Laurent was the youth club of Canadian men’s national team star centre-back Moïse Mombito.
While Saint-Laurent usually plays its games at the Complex Sportif Claude-Robillard, Wednesday’s match will be at Laval’s Stade Boréale, where Forge edged FC Supra 2-1 on Sunday afternoon.
So The Hammers, who remained in Laval after the game to prepare for Wednesday, will have some familiarity with the pitch and surrounding facilities.
Dan Nimick’s perfect penalty kick, which eluded an athletic dive by the Supra keeper, gave Hamilton a 1-0 lead, but an unforced giveaway resulted in a long bomb by Loïc Kwemi to knot things in the 55th minute. But Tristan Borges’ deft long feed was headed in by Maxime Filion for the winner.
Forge, who roared back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Vancouver FC 3-2 in Hamilton nine days ago, has now won five in a row to maintain its spot atop the CPL with 10 wins, a draw and a solitary loss. Their 31 points are five better than second-place Cavalry, which has a game in hand. Then it’s a dropoff of nine points to a more-tightly-bunched group of five teams jostling for third through seventh.
“We’re in the depth of the season and when you look back, our last two games have not been our best,” Smith said. “But the guys bounced back with big goals, and our substitutions have been excellent—Nana (Ampomah) and Max, particularly, in the last game—and we’ve still found ways to win and to keep pace with Cavalry.”
They’re nearing the midway point of their 28-game CPL schedule, and will host Pacific FC a week from Thursday at Hamilton Stadium.
But that’s a target for another day. First there are the two big games against Saint-Laurent, and Forge aren’t taking those lightly at all.