If meaningful games build rivalries, within a month Forge FC and FC Supra du Québec should have something heated going on.
Entering this season, the eighth-year Hammers and the CPL’s newest expansion team had never faced each other. But beginning Wednesday night at Hamilton Stadium, three of Forge’s next four games, and four of their next seven, will be against the Laval, Quebec side.
There will be two games in each city, in two separate competitions.
With Forge suddenly in a dogfight for first place in the CPL—they’ve lost two straight and have dropped to second place, two points behind Cavalry, but with a game in hand—and Supra crammed into a three-team bunch trying to go on a run to close a large gap behind Inter Ottawa for the fourth and final playoff spot, every league game is critical for both teams. They’ll play CPL matches this Wednesday here, and Friday, Aug. 28 back in Laval.
In between, the two teams also have a home-and-away brace of games in the total-goals-to-count semi-finals of the TELUS Canadian Championships—Tuesday, Sept. 1 at Supra, with leg 2 in Hamilton Tuesday, Sept. 15—for the right to play the winner of the CF Montréal –Vancouver Whitecaps semifinal for the national title and an automatic berth in next winter’s Concacaf Champions Cup, the premier club competition in this part of the world.
With the Voyageurs Cup matches and five league games, the Hammers have seven games in 28 days.
“We’ve got league games coming up against Supra and Cup games too, so you’re preparing for an opponent, one game after another,” says head coach Bobby Smyrniotis. “There’s obviously some good in that, especially when you’re playing a congested schedule like we are. You’re not switching from one opponent to another as we are now within two days: going from Calgary to Supra, then in two days going from Supra to Pacific. So that will allow us to know exactly what we have in front of us.
“It’s not as if it’s a team we’re going to see a month down the road, and the team has changed. Usually when you play in two weeks it’s the team you’ve already played.”
Supra is also playing seven games in that stretch, coming off Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Ottawa, whom they’d eliminated in the national semifinal only five days earlier. Forge has won both the head-to-heads with Supra so far in league play (1-0 and 2-1), but the expansion side can be dangerous, especially in an elimination competition, and they have Loïc Kwemi tied for the league lead with eight goals.
“They’re a dynamic team that, in general, does a good job of keeping the ball and playing quickly, especially at their home field,” Smyrniotis said. “A lot of them have played together before this year. They’ve got a lot of talented players, but at the same time there are opportunities against them as well.”
With losses to Vancouver FC and Cavalry preceded by a scoreless draw in Halifax, the Hammers have extracted just one of a potential nine points from their last three games.
Are they in a trough?
“No, it’s mid-season,” said Smyrniotis, who said he’s not worried about his club’s overall performance.
“If you look at the history of how we play, this usually happens in August. It’s usually game 21 or 22; this is just a bit earlier (16 games)
“Is it a little bit that we had a bit of a cushion? Is it a little bit of overall fatigue? If I could put my finger on it, I would. We played an excellent game against Vancouver and couldn’t score, which is going to happen. Against Cavalry we’re up 1-0, and then we’re playing with 10 men for 65 minutes. It’s not an easy thing to do on the road.”
Forge need to inhale Wednesday’s full three points to take full advantage of their game in hand and regain the league lead. They’ll have to flush out having two of their fullbacks red-carded in always-tough Calgary, where they’d built a 1-0 lead. Rezart Rama was sent off after a fairly lengthy replay review for putting his hands on the throat of Daan Klomp as the two confronted each other, and the review of Klomp’s role, requested by Forge, appeared to take much less time before he was exonerated. Cavalry scored two strong goals with the man advantage, then Marko Jevremović was carded late in the game on a hard tackle in which most replays show he got to the ball well before the opponent went down.
But that was all then, and this is now, and Forge must forget about the rear-view mirror and look only out the front window.
“We’ve shown we can do that,” Smyrniotis said.