HEALEY: No Canadian Premier League club has completed the double; Forge FC may be the first
Breakfast. A leisurely walk through the streets of Hamilton. Maybe a nap.
It may not sound like the pre-match routine of a professional footballer, especially for a player who has suited up for some tremendously important matches this year, including a tie against Liga MX’s giant Chivas, but it’s one Forge FC attacker David Choinière swears by. Six years into his tenure with head coach Bobby Smyrniotis and the Hammers, it’s hard to argue with the results.
“I’m trying not to waste my energy before the game,” Choinière tells OneSoccer during an interview on Thursday. “I try to be as calm as possible so I don’t overthink things.”
Given the stakes — including the chance to make history as the first Canadian Premier League club to win both the CPL Shield and the North Star Cup in the same season — it’s no wonder Choinière and his teammates are trying to keep a level head as they prepare to face Cavalry FC on Sunday. The winner of the top-seeded playoff match will punch their ticket to the finals while earning the opportunity to play for, and potentially hoist, a trophy in front of their home fans. And with the CPL Shield already safely tucked in their trophy cabinet, Forge’s sights are zeroed in on adding yet more hardware to their haul.
When asked if completing the CPL double is something the players are thinking about, Choinière says it’s inevitable given the year he and his teammates have had.
“It would be a lie to say no,” he explains.” But in saying that, there’s so much work we need to do and so much football to play. We’re a team. The core of the players have been here since day one and we want to achieve (the double) to create an even bigger legacy. It would be another historic achievement for the club.
“We clinched the first position a couple weeks ago now. We had time to celebrate a little bit, to acknowledge what we achieved but we’re still putting the work in. Now, it’s a switch of mentality as we go into the playoffs really focused knowing what we need to do to get the win against (Cavalry) and give us access to another final.”
But past success is no guarantee of future endeavours, a fact that centre-back Alexander Achinioti-Jönsson is all too aware of. It’d be easy to look at Forge’s record — including four playoff championships in 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 — and come to the conclusion that this year’s North Star Cup is theirs to lose.
But given what this group has gone through, and the lessons they’ve learned through the regular season, CONCACAF Champions Cup and the Canadian Championship, says Achinioti-Jönsson, this year’s iteration of Forge knows nothing is guaranteed.
“I usually say we’re our own worst enemy. If we come out and play our best football, I think — no matter the team on the other side — we’re very hard to beat. We’ve got to show that against every team,” says the 28-year old Swede.
Cavalry, which is the only other CPL side to have their season start in January, is the latest challenge for the Hamilton-based club which has built its reputation on upping the ante.
Another campaign in the books for Forge's core
Forge’s core players, those who were part of the project from day one, are the first to admit they didn’t know what awaited them when they signed on for the CPL’s inaugural season.
Now, six years later, captain Kyle Bekker, Choinière, Achinioti-Jönsson, Dominic Samuel and Tristan Borges remain the spine of a club that has built a reputation on winning. They’ve won trophies. They’ve served as standard bearers for a young league both in domestic and international competition. And internally, they’ve committed to pushing their level to new heights every year.
“Every year, we’ve been taking another step, whether it’s in the Canadian Championship or the CONCACAF Champions Cup or in our own league. It’s been an amazing journey where we always strive for more,” says Achinioti-Jönsson.
Part of the recipe for success, he notes, is that the club has been able to retain cornerstone players while adding new talent.
“You have a new team every year, you play against teams that aren’t the same, but we’ve been able to keep the same kind of core, the same guys to integrate the newer guys into the team,” he says.
One of the key pieces Forge added along the way is defensive midfielder Alessandro Hojabrpour, who joined from Pacific FC in 2022. Although in his third year with the club, he says he still remembers the feeling of stepping into the locker room.
“It’s very intense,” explains Hojabrpour. “But when you come here, and see that winning is a big thing, that the style of play is a big thing, you enjoy that intensity. They want to mesh the two really well.”
The architect of this culture, of course, is Smyrniotis. Hojabrpour credits his head coach, and also the whole coaching staff, for continuing to bring new goals, new styles of play and new ideas to the group. Without it, and the drive to continually push standards, it’s possible for teams to become complacent.
That hasn’t happened at Forge.
“That’s the biggest question going into every season: how do you keep motivating players who have done it before?” quips Hojabrpour. “If you can keep your mind engaged in different ways tactically and bring in new players with different skill sets, there are all motivating factors inside the group.”
Players like Béni Badibanga and Noah Jensen have also become part of the club’s leadership core, faces who have been in Hamilton for some time and brought their perspectives to the group.
Together, with the help of younger players like Malik Owolabi-Belewu, Christopher Kalongo and the recently sold Kwasi Poku, Forge has fielded a squad that gets results but also develops Canadian talent.
Facing an old foe... for a shot at history
On Sunday, Forge and Cavalry will once again square off.
And although the loser of the match up won’t be knocked out, having earned a second chance thanks to their regular season form, Forge is treating the tilt like a do or die scenario.
“You’re playing to survive,” says Choinière. “There’s never an easy game against Cavalry. We’ve created a rivalry against them.”
Forge’s first playoff match of 2024 is really a re-setting of last year’s table, with head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr.’s side standing in their way from hosting the final. And although they emerged victorious in both their playoff encounters last year, with Borge’s jaw-dropping Olimpico proving to be the winner in the final, nothing is guaranteed.
That, of course, includes potentially completing the CPL double.
“I don’t think we’re worried about being the first ones (to complete the double). Our goal has always been to win the playoffs. No matter what, we go into it with the same attitude,” says Achinioti-Jönsson.
But that’s not to say Achinioti-Jönsson and his teammates aren’t hungry to make history: they just know they have a war to get through first.
For his part, Hojabrpour thinks the rivalry between Forge and Cavalry is only good for the health of the league.
“They’re a good team. They’ve got experience just like we do. They bring a little bit, their own tactical ideas and they want to win. It’s going to be another good one on Sunday,” he says.
