The unavoidable, and painful, irony was that a brilliant season built upon an impenetrable backline was terminated by defensive miscues.
“It was actually quite a good game from us, but if you give up three goals, it's going to be difficult to navigate, and it's going to be tough to win; it's that simple,” disappointed head coach Bobby Smyrniotis said after his Forge FC improbably surrendered a goal in the 103rd minute of play and were eliminated from the CPL playoffs 3-2 by Atlético Ottawa Saturday afternoon.
Emerging star and Ottawa native Nicolas Fleuriau Chateau capped a brilliant afternoon with his third goal of the game to propel the Atlético into the CPL final against Cavalry FC in Calgary on Nov. 21, denying Forge a chance to win its second trophy of the season.
They’ll have to be satisfied basking in the glow of becoming the first non-MLS team ever to win the Canadian National Championship.
With that Voyageurs Cup and its automatic berth in the Concacaf Champions Cup, Forge faces another short off-season. For the third straight year, they’ll return to Hamilton to train in January for a home-and-away first-round Cup matchup in early-to-mid-February.
They’ll find out their first opponent with the formal Cup draw on Dec. 21.
After Cavalry eliminated FC Supra du Québec 2-0 to win the other CPL semi 3-2 on aggregate, Ottawa was also guaranteed a spot in Champions Cup, along with first-place Cavalry, who already had earned a berth as CPL Shield winners.
The CPL final will be a replay of last year’s all-time classic when the same two teams played in a raging Ottawa blizzard that required five stoppages for snow removal and included David Rodgriquez’s “icicle” kick, which went viral around the soccer world as Atlético won 2-1.
If Ottawa wins the CPL North Star Cup, they’ll become only the second side to win two in a row, behind Forge, which has twice captured back-to-back titles. If Cavalry wins, they’ll become the first CPL team to win two trophies in the same season, which Forge had hoped to do after the Voyageurs Cup.
If there’s any consolation at all in the Forge loss, it’s that the CPL will now have three teams in the Concacaf Champions Cup for the first time. With Forge already qualifying with the Canadian Championship victory, the only remaining route to the Champions Cup has been slammed shut for CF Montréal, the MLS team Hamilton defeated in the Voyageurs Cup final.
Prior to recent changes which guaranteed at least two spots for the CPL, Forge had been the only league team to qualify for the Champions Cup. With Forge already qualifying for 2027 with the Canadian Championship victory, the third CPL berth in Concacaf goes to Ottawa, no matter how they do in the final against Cavalry, which already had a Cup berth because they edged Forge for the CPL Shield as regular-season champions.
And as Vancouver Whitecaps won the MLS West, there will be four Canadian teams—also a first—in the 2027 Champions Cup.
After a 2-2 draw in the opening leg in Ottawa, it appeared that the two sides were headed for another one, after Forge pulled a rabbit from the soccer hat with a penalty-kick goal in the 11th minute of extra time by reliable Dan Nimick. Perhaps Forge was already thinking about overtime because they collectively fell asleep, didn’t speed back on defence to plug the prime areas and permitted Fleuriau Chateau, who joined Ottawa only in July from Ireland’s Galway United, to adroitly angle between two defenders and direct a low bouncer to the far corner, eluding Dimitry Bertaud’s desperate dive.
Both Nimick and Manjrekar James—each of them stalwarts all game—lost footing on the play, providing Fleuriau Chateau just enough daylight.
“It's easy to say you could have done something different, but we've been on the positive side of that as well,” Smyrniotis said. “If you do this long enough, and you play enough games like this… you're going to live everything, and you have to be prepared for it. It's tough to live it; we hate it in the moment, but that's the reality.”
To Forge’s credit, they did not bring up the loss of high-quality striker Lucas Cavallini to a hamstring injury for both semifinal games. He was set to play Saturday but was a late scratch when pre-match tests showed he was still injured. Recently retired captain Kyle Bekker, and veteran forwards Brian Wright and Levonte Johnson also in street clothes for the game, but Smyrniotis and game-day captain Noah Jensen talked about it only when pressed by the media, and refused to use the absences as an excuse.
Still, Forge could not convert enough chances in the first half when they had seven corner kicks and 20 touches inside the offensive box compared to zero for the visitors, but still trailed 1-0 until Hoce Massunda scored in extra time of the first half.
Forge had not trailed in any of their last 11 games, but they trailed three times against Ottawa, once too often. They missed some excellent opportunities, and former Forge Kris Kalongo came up with a couple of series-winning saves.
Despite outstanding regular-season successes—including a franchise-record 58 points each of the past two years—Forge has now won just once in their last seven CPL playoff games, with five losses among them. In general, throughout this year, they sometimes had to settle for draws when they outperformed the opposition, and that can be playing with fire in important games.
Ottawa felt it had played well enough to win the first game but ended regulation with a draw, and Forge felt it had played well enough in the second game to end regulation in a draw... then inexcusably let that potential draw descend into a loss.
“All of us were very confident in our game plan and how we matched up against Ottawa,” said Jensen, who in Bekker’s absence has ramped up his game, replacing the legend in midfield and also on the armband. “We know that they have dangerous players, and obviously those are the guys you have to be aware of in the counterattack. I don't really think they created too much in the first half, but we were down 1-0, and those are the things that happen in this game, but ultimately, those are the things that we were supposed to prevent.
“We will definitely look back on this game as one that we think we played better football, and that we were the better team, but obviously it resulted in the way it ended.
“Last year it was Ottawa, this year it was Ottawa again. I'm sure that leaves a sour taste in everyone's mouth, but at the same time, when we get to the playoffs, regardless of who we're playing, we have to be able to score and keep the ball out of our net, which we just didn't do today.”
While the manner in which the series was lost penetrated Forge and its supporters like a knife, the entertainment value was sky-high and the TV and the live audience—over 6000 in Ottawa, 7412 in Hamilton—got more than their money’s worth. The games were a precious advertisement for the entire league.
And give Ottawa credit, as they’ve proven all season that they’re dangerous late; no team in league history has come back from deficits in as many games as Atlético did this season. Fleuriau Chateau said afterward that it’s no longer a two-team league, and his team has got to be in the conversation with the Hammers and Cavs. Supra also has a bright future.
As much as Forge will remember the late loss as distressing, it will assume a revered place of honour in the lore of Atlético. And that deserves a little deeper dive: it’s a hallmark of most dynasties in professional team sports that there are also central to some stand-forever memorable moments for their opponents, because those moments came against the gold standard. Thus, Pittsburgh will always remember the 1960 Pirates who were outscored 55-27 in the World Series by the dynastic Yankees but won the title on Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off homer; Giants fans will recall forever the late moments of two Super Bowl wins over the decade-dominant Patriots; the Cleveland Cavaliers will never forget their comeback NBA title win over perennial champions Golden State. You have to be at your best to beat the best, and Forge’s achievements mean they’ll almost always face the best version of their CPL opponents, especially in the money games.
“That's football,” Smyrniotis said. “We've been on the other end of it, too.
“Here's the thing in sports. You usually taste moments like this a lot more than moments of success. That's one thing we always talk about with the guys, and we're blessed because we always taste success.
“It’s a difficult one. This is a team that does so much, has done so much, continues to do a lot, so it's a hard way to end the season. For what they put into our most successful season, it ends the way it did in a game where I thought we played some good football. We created a lot of opportunities; we got back into the end there, and you say, ‘okay, this game's gonna go into overtime.’”
Forge had an outstanding season, and with Antoine Batisse named as a finalist for Player of the Year Monday, have at least one representative in all of the major individual award categories except for Golden Boot, which automatically goes to the player with the most goals (Supra’s Loïc Kwemi). But even that had a Forge-positive side to it, as 19 different players scored for Hamilton in CPL action this year, most in the league. And several younger players came to the forefront as they got some Cup time and lots of CPL game responsibilities. This, remember, was a transition year, per Smyrniotis’s habit of significant turnover every third season: so, the likes of Massunda, creative forward Aghilas Sadek, Maxime Bourgeois, Ismael Oketkokoun, Max Filion, Zayne Bruno, Anthony Aromatario, Kevaughn Tevernier and keeper Dino Bontis all made notable contributions and took necessary steps forward. They are the future of the team, both in the near term and the longer view. And the French Connection acquisitions of Bertaud and Batisse proved to be a spectacular coup.