Three on the scoreboard, an even bigger three in the standings.
Nana Ampomah, rounding into form, which saw him score six CPL goals last year, scored twice and kept the offensive pressure on throughout his 66 minutes on the pitch as Forge FC beat Inter Toronto 3-1 Sunday at York Lions Stadium in Toronto.
With the season’s halfway point arriving on the long weekend, the victory increased Hamilton’s gap to seven points over second-place Cavalry FC, which lost 1-0 at improving Vancouver FC.
“Overall, I thought it was a good performance, a performance we needed,” said Hammers head coach Bobby Smyrniotis as Hamilton ran its streak to 13 games without a loss against their geographically closest rivals.
“Coming off a stretch not playing for a bit, it was about getting back to our usual selves. There were a couple of bumps, but the guys were aggressive in the attack, aggressive in the counter-press.”
“Inter had a new keeper (Ivan Pavela, who spent last season in Croatia’s second tier), and you want to keep the pressure on him.”’
Which they certainly did, forcing him to make several big saves, including one off Antoine Batisse’s classic header in the 70th minute and another to deny Marko Jevremović’s screaming shot in the 26th.
The Forge had nine full shots on target to just two for Inter, and a whopping 28 shots, with the North York side creating only eight, which, for the most part, the Forge defenders and goalkeeper Dimitry Bertaud fended off.
“We had that one goal earlier that got disallowed for offside, rightly so, but our intention was right with the attack, right from the beginning, and we did very well,” Smyrniotis said.
That offside nullified Jevremović’s hard strike of Ampomah’s curving seeing-eye cross to the Serbian attacking left back.
But Ampomah couldn’t be denied: He leapt high to head in a perfect service from Tristan Borges on a set piece in the 41st minute, and after Tomasz Skublak had equalized on a rare Forge breakdown in the 44th minute, he worked a 1-2 with rookie striker Aghilas Sadek then undressed a defender and the keeper with a mesmerizing dribble and shot.
“He’s someone who needs to be important to our attack,” Smyrniotis said. “Nana was delayed (months of work visa issues) in coming here this season, and it’s taken a while to get up to speed. Mostly it’s getting the match minutes in for him.
“He’s had some good performances, but once you have the final product, you have him get a couple of goals, and he also set up that first goal for Marko, which was called back on offside. Those are also confidence-boosters, and that’s what we need from him to give us that different dimension in the attack to be able to unlock teams who are going to be a little bit defensive.”
Jevremović also had a standout match as Forge continues to try to maneuver him, when the situations are ripe, into a better advancing position, which definitely happened Sunday. There have been times when he can be a bit hesitant because of his commitment, but “he had a thoroughly good game,” Sunday Smyrniotis said.
Hamilton’s third goal was scored late in the match by Ismael Oketokoun on a deft three-man run of play from Jevremović to Noah Jensen to the 20-year-old Spaniard.
Another young Forge player also had an impact as 18-year-old Aghilas Sadek, who’s played only a small handful of games for Forge while also suiting up often for affiliate Sigma FC, acquitted himself well, starting at striker for the first time and confidently probed the Inter defence.
“He’s a midfielder, so it was his first game as a pro as striker,” Smyrniotis said. “In training he’s excellent, working his socks off, with a lot of talent and a lot of ability. He scores a lot of goals, and he’s very good in and around the box.”
“His combination play is very good, and he can hold onto the ball. At some points, Inter was going to press, and we wanted a guy who could bring the ball down, and he did all of those facets well.”
Sadek played in CF Montréal’s academy system before the Forge brought him into their fold in the late winter.
Does Smyrniotis perhaps see in him another Kwasi Poku situation, where a youngster who played another attacking position (Poku started here as a left back) catapults to success as a pro striker?
“He’s a good player so we’ll see what happens,” the Forge Sporting Director said. “As we go forward, people will start noticing him.”
Forge will head to Halifax on Sunday to meet the Wanderers while Inter Toronto can help their 905 Derby rivals the previous night when they visit Cavalry.
The Hammers had a profitable weekend, not only holding their lead over Cavalry but extending it to seven points—the two teams’ final head-to-heads are both in Alberta—and moving three up in the win column, the first tie-breaking factor.
“It was important to come out of this weekend and increase the spread,” Smyrniotis said. “That’s massive psychologically and puts pressure on the ones below you … and now off to the next one.”