When Forge FC was obliged to enter a penalty-kick shootout in last week’s single-game Canadian Championship in Montréal, not many soccer fans would have thrown their money behind the CPL team. The Hammers had lost enough penalty-kick decisions in their otherwise remarkably successful history that their fate in this one might have seemed pre-determined.
But something funny happened on the way to the foregone conclusion. All season, Bobby Smyrniotis and his coaching staff had worked tirelessly on every detail—small, large, tactical and psychological—involved in the emotional ritual from12 yards out that can buckle the knees of even the game’s biggest stars. All teams work on penalty kicks after practice, but Forge took it to a much higher level of repetition and simulation.
And, wouldn’t you know it, history turned tail. Waving the white flag, Dimitry Bertaud made two enormous saves, and four Forge shooters—all Canadians—decisively scored to exorcise past demons and claim a current trophy: the biggest ever for Forge and for the CPL. It was the perfect example of how, when Forge concentrates its training focus on something, it stays focused. And, over time, that part of their repertoire improves.
It happened throughout 2025 when the emphasis was on generating more offence from the backline. And earlier this year, too, when Bobby Smyrniotis challenged his charges to generate more defensive pressure from the offensive front line.
And it’s happening again in the waning stages of another successful season as Forge prepares to host Atlético Ottawa Saturday afternoon (1 p.m. OneSoccer and TSN) in the winner-take-all second leg of the CPL semifinal.
During training, Forge has spent some extra time in recent weeks performing drills which emphasize hard kicks at the net, repeating them over and over so that more go directly on net, and not as many over it or wide. Additionally, emphasis was put on getting the ball off the foot well before a defender has time to come out to block it or run the shooter out of prime position. Forge shooters had often been too cute, delaying in hopes of a more immaculate opportunity. But the staff worked insistently on players taking the shot from farther out rather than obsessing over finding a perfect pass or dribble. And most importantly, having the confidence to relax and let the shot go with authority and sometimes an element of surprise.
And do all of it early in the game if the opportunities present themselves.
It’s been working. Before he was injured and then retired, Kyle Bekker had some great shots from the middle; in the 1-1 regular-season finale at Pacific, Tristan Borges opened the scoring in the 12th minute with a thundering, bending laser which he took with his right leg rather than his more dominant left, maximizing a perfect feed from Levonte Johnson; Marko Jevremović scored punishingly 56 seconds into the second half of an important rout against Inter Toronto; Noah Jensen rocketed one in at home against Pacific; and in Sunday’s first leg of the CPL semifinal in Ottawa, Jevremović uncorked a startling and unstoppable smoker from about 30 yards out on a free kick.
That was a set play, where elimination games are often decided, but it had the same principles: deception, authority, confidence and firm-footed delivery. It also included pattern recognition: he knew there was a sliver of room by the way keeper Kris Kalongo and his protective wall were aligned, and there would be an element of surprise because he was so far away and might be expected to try to dish off to a teammate who was closer.
“I think it’s finding the right moments,” Smyrniotis said of his team’s apparent increase in quick, hard shots. “There are certain teams that give you spaces on top of the penalty zone and certain ones that don’t. I think it also emphasizes that each team gives you certain zones on the field where you’re allowed to finish from or where you’ll have some space, and some of them give more on the range outside the penalty area than others do. I think it’s more of a focus on recognizing where those spaces are and having our players take advantage of it.”
Not every one of the shots finds the back of the net, or even forces the keeper to make a save, but merely showing the propensity to uncork one from a shocking distance, especially early in a game or half when teams tend to feel each other out, is a form of advertising.
“You take a shot like that from distance early in a game, and maybe defenders start thinking they have to come out and press you more, and it opens space for the wingers to get in behind,” Jensen says. “It’s part of the dynamic ability we have to attack; we can shoot, we can attack, we can dribble into the box. A lot of ways the ball can go into the back of the net.
“So, when we’re standing over the ball, the goalie has to respect the shot from wherever we’re playing from. And it’s good that we’re also able to serve the ball and attack the ball in the air, so I think our set pieces are multi-faceted. It’s been working well for us, and obviously it’s been showing in the goals.”
“Borges, who’s been unnerving CPL goalkeepers since he was a 20-year-old rookie in the league’s inaugural season, concurs with the multi-pronged effect of early, far and often.
“It adds another thing that our team can do,” he says. “If anybody has the confidence to hit the ball from a good amount of distance, or on a set piece or free kick, I think then it’s harder for teams to sit back and think that we’re going to just keep possession of the ball. And it forces them to make a decision and step out toward us.”
With his long, heavily muscled legs, Jevremović has emerged as one of the hardest hoofers on the team and is taking more of the corner kicks and free kicks which favour a left-footer. The native of Belgrade has never had the speed of his shot measured but says despite his obviously rapid and heavy strike, it was more so a few years ago when he was playing in the Serbian pro leagues.
He spends a full month of off-season training working only on his legs before proceeding to the rest of his preparation, and when he was young, “I had to walk to school two-and-a-half kilometres and coming home it was another two-and-a-half kilometres uphill from the school. So, five kilometres minimum a day and my father said that helped a lot because I’d get strong.”
But, he adds, not all of his thunderclap derives from physical labour.
“My left foot has followed me all my life...it’s from the Gods, I would say,” Jevremović says. “Also, before receiving the ball for a long-distance shot, I have a plan for where I’m going to shoot. To have a plan is better than just hitting the ball without any idea.
“We don’t think about these things that much because it’s natural for us after years. I’ve played soccer since I was five, so 25 years now, but the most important thing is the first touch, and after that it’s the opposite leg. So, in my case, the right leg has to be very close to the ball. You want your body a little bit in front of the ball because if your body is leaning back, the ball goes too high.”
The kinds of shots Forge has taken a few more of, with better GPS readings, can impact the tactical mindset of defenders.
“Always,” Smyrniotis agrees. “It’s knowing that we have players on our team like Marko, Jensen, Borges, (Aghilas) Sadek, Ben (Paton), guys who can hit the ball from range and hit it with accuracy. That puts the defenders into a double-thought process, and that’s what it’s about; you have to put the defenders into the double-thought of ‘Do I step? Do I stay?’ in every situation, and once you do that, it’s half the battle to opening up space.”
Just one more thing, among many, to keep your eye on during Saturday afternoon’s sudden-death semifinal.