Forge FC 2 -0 Athletico Ottawa.
I grew up in Toronto. Everything west of Roncesvalles Road to me was the bleak untreed windy and cold suburbs. My mom grew up in Etobicoke where my grandparents lived their whole lives. We used to travel out along the 401 to Burnhamthorpe Road and down onto Shaver Drive to go visit them a few times a year. I enjoyed the times I spent with my grandparents, but, having grown up in the leafy streets of North Toronto, I never grew to like the big wide open skies, always coloured slate gray, and the cold rain and wind to feel like it was a different country altogether.
(I recently revisited this neighbourhood and of course 45 years on the landscape is very different. Trees are everything for me in urban areas.)
Tuning into the Canadian Premier league opener today and watching the wind whip around the stadium in Hamilton and the cold raindrops of an early April day in Ontario gave me shivers of nostalgia for those bleak places. Spring isn’t really a season in southern Ontario. It’s more of three week period of cold rain and chilly days followed by a quick eruption of flowering plants, leaves, and a couple of weeks of stinky dog poo which has been accumulating on top of the snow and slush for the past five months.
But in the midst of these industrial and car centred landscapes there lives communities of passion and support for local sport, not the least of which is the crew at Forge FC. Hamilton was the location of the Canadian Premier league 2026 opener today and, while rising more to the location and not the occasion, a newly revamped Athletico Ottawa paid a visit to Steel town. It was anybody’s guess how they would play this season given that their cup winning side has been thoroughly depleted by player movement in the off-season. But there are know for playing an exciting brand of football, as are Forge, and so I was looking forward to this match.
In the end, it was probably the story that Forge will be giving us all season. Ottawa started holding possession for the first five minutes, passing the ball east and west so often that people were lining up to build a railroad. Forge had very little to do but plug up the centre of the pitch. It somewhat resembled a a child teasing a cat. The cat will go along with it for a bit, but at some point, it will grow frustrated by the game and just jump on the child’s face.
That’s what Forge did. Over the course of the match, they simply smothered Ottawa and wouldn’t let them develop any promising plays. Athletico were free to incrementally move the ball down the pitch, but it seemed every player received a pass with his back to goal and a Forge player blocking his progress. It was another day at the office for Bobby Smyrliotis, who is the dean of Canadian coaches. It only seemed to take him 10 minutes to figure out how to win the game and then another 80 to execute the plan. Ottawa never had a shot.
New rules were in effect for this match, including the trial of the daylight offside rule and a new scheme called Football Video Support whereby each team’s manager has two challenges of a referees ruling. If they’re successful, they keep a challenge and if not, they lose it. Diego Mejia, from Ottawa, was an enthusiastic user of his FVS cards. I have to say, I already hate this new rule. The answer to no video review is not more video review. And the answer to the much-maligned video assistant referee role in world football is not also giving the coaches the ability to review plays.
I have yet to see how the new offside rule will impact play, but the FVS trial is gonna drive me batty.
At any rate, Forge won the match 2-0 and Bobby and his team can look forward to yet another Canadian Premier League season in which they’re likely to be challenging again for silverware, Athletico Ottawa is going to have to go back to the drawing board and the training ground. Meija should use his video review there.
It’s the opening day for our 2025 TSS Rovers season. Canada’s only supporter owned football club, playing in the newly rebranded BC Premier League take to the field tonight away to Burnaby FC. We are fielding a very new team of men’s players, moving on from the past four years where we were a destination for many players wanting to get in the shop window thanks to our record of participation in the Canadian Championship. We were pipped at the last minute for the league title last year when Langley scored the winner on a last kick penalty in the last game of the BCPL season to secure the championship. So we aren’t in that tournament this year. As a result we are a mix of seasoned hands like Ali Zohar, now in his fifth year with our team, and young talent that has a chance to step into the spotlight. A number of player’s from our club’s U21 side will make the jump to the first team this year, including Ronan Ward, a promising young striker that blew away the competition for Golden Boot in the Vancouver Metro Soccer League U21 division.
On the women’s side, our team of warriors who secured their first ever Metro Women’s Soccer League championship this season will start the season together and will be joined by a number of veterans returning from University play in Canada and the USA. We have always finished 4th in the past four years, but we’re all very optimistic that this group can better that. Not an easy task when they are playing against the Vancouver Rise academy, and Altitude FC, a team made up largely of the national champion UBC Thunderbirds. Chemistry counts, and a season of holding on to top spot right up to the final game in the MWSL gave them much needed experience of that pressure to win. Winning it was a vindication for our approach that emphasizes development and style of play. The points followed.
There is nothing like opening night of the season to get the blood pumping. It feel like Christmas Day.
When I look around at the other sports teams I am emotionally invested in, the scene is bleak. The Toronto Maple Leafs are well out of the playoff race despite a good win on Monday. Tottenham Hotspur are facing relegation and with seven games left in this season they have appointed Roberto de Zerbi to replace Ange Postacoglu, Thomas Frank, Igor Tudor. Spurs are on the verge of suffering the worst punishment a Premier League team can endure. My son pointed out to me last night that a little under a year ago, we were at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium watching them beat Southampton 3-1, relegating the Saints in the process. That was only four Premier-League-wins-at-home ago. Dreadful.
Meanwhile The Vancouver Goldeneyes fell victim to the Montreal Victoire who set a PWHL points streak record and secured a playoff spot with a 3-0 win over our local women. The talk of tanking has stopped, becasue the PWHL, in all their wisdom have implemented the solution to the problems of rewarding the worst team with the perverse incentive of selecting the best available player in the draft. I’m just new to the league, so it was only this week when I was told about the Gold Plan, which ranks teams eliminated from the playoffs by how many points they acquire at the end of the season. This is the answer to the bizarre feature of North American sports where the worst team gets the biggest prize in terms of new talents.
On the pitch the Vancouver Rise are getting ready to start their season with two former Rovers in the side. Kirstin Tynan is back at keeper and Mia Pante has come home on a loan spell from Italian giants AC Roma, where she wasn’t getting a lot of playing time. I’m looking forward to them making a serious run at repeating as playoff champions.
On the men’s side, the National team played its final two friendlies before the World Cup during this break, finishing with two draws. They played Iceland to a 2-2 result on Friday and on Tuesday drew Tunisia 0-0. Former Rover Joel Waterman started both games. Our centre back positions have some tough competition and Joel survived the test. But once Bambino and de Fougerolles are healthy, he’ll need everything in his talent locker to get a start in the World Cup.
Bosnia and Herzegovina awaits. (Mi dispiace per la vostra perdita, amici miei italiani)
San Diego Wave 3 – 1 Portland Thorns
Whatever is happening on the San Diego training ground, it’s paying off. The Wave played a disciplined, relentless, smothering style against Portland all night, giving the visitors little time to think about what they were doing, while at the same time exploiting space and creating chance after chance. If it wasn’t for Messner in the Thorns goal, this score would have been far less flattering to Portland.
The Wave led through excellent team play and individual brilliance. They press high and hard and smothered the midfield, marking Jesse Fleming into near oblivion. This generated many turnovers, and the Thorns left huge amounts of space in which the sublime Dudinha could operate. Paired with Ludmila cutting in from the wing, the Brazillians created havoc for the Thorns backline throughout the first half. I Can’t imagine what will happen when Adriana Leon returns to this side after her foot heals.
Portland’s only goal came off a mistake in the first half. The Thorns threatened several times, notably through set pieces which were delivered with perfection by Olivia Moultrie but the story of the match was that they couldn’t finish their chances. Even a half time substitution which saw Sophia Wilson come into the game couldn’t spark much. The Wave simply didn’t afford them the space or time on the ball.
The last 15 minutes of the game opened up more, but it was Portland that paid the price, giving up a third goal that sealed the game. A terrific coaching battle, and although the Thorns held their own they gave up their first goals of the season after 180 minutes of clean sheets, and now the tactics board beckons.
The cliffs at the end of the world, near Sagres, Portugal.
Tottenham 0 – 3 Nottingham Forest
I moved to Cheshunt, Herts, in England in 1978, just six weeks after the English football season ended. Under the guidance of Brian Clough, Nottingham Forest won the First Division that season, setting them up for an epic couple of years in which they were the dominant force in European football. Tottenham on the other hand had been dire. They were relegated to the second division in 1976-77, and won promotion the following year on the strength of goal difference alone. When I arrived on the scene, Tottenham was back, a top flight local team stacked with fresh talent like Glen Hoddle and World Cup winners Ricardo Villa and Ozzie Ardilles. That team grew in stature and swagger, winning the FA Cup in 1981 and 1982 and then the UEFA Cup in 1984.
So I never knew the pain of relegation for Spurs, nor could have I ever imagined that Nottingham Forest would not be the best team in the world. And yet here we are, Tottenham coming off our first European trophy since that UEFA Cup, and Forest FINALLY pulling themselves clear of 23 years outside of the top flight.
This morning, a six point game beckoned. Forest, who have struggled this season travelled to north London to play Tottenham. Six points were on the line here. It was Nottingham’s chance to leap frog Spurs towards 16th place and some modicum of safety. Tottenham, West Ham and Forest are trying hard to NOT finish in 18th place. We had to win.
And we didn’t. We outplayed Forest for much of the game, sending corner after corner harmlessly into the box. We hit a couple of posts and crossbars and exacted a couple of key saves. But in the end? It was dire, terrible, uninspired, without shape or identity or any kind of idea. Forest found three goals from think chances, and on a normal day you might say that the scoreline flattered them but not today. Today our undoing was the collective shrug we played with. Archie Grey, the 20 year old midfielder was the only one who see to show any kind of creativity. Mattias Tel, cutting in from the left wing provided a handful to deal with, but there isn’t much point winning corners if they serve no further purpose.
I can’t help think that we are going down. Two home wins in the premier league all season. No wins in 2026, and it’s almost April. The only good news today was Arsenal bottling the League Cup Final, but even a lost trophy to our biggest rivals is no salve for the wounds. Spurs are bleeding.
Tottenham 3 (5) v 2 (7) Athletico Madrid
It might be the last Spurs match in Europe for a while. Having navigated the league stage of the Champions League with style, Spurs were dire in the round of 16 versus Atletico Madrid. Last week in Madrid a series of goalkeeping mistakes from Kinsky and then defensive lapses from everyone else put us down 5-2 in the first leg.
Returning to London, the crowd was surprisingly loud at home. After a week in which we barely survived a tie against Liverpool, and Igor Tudor survived his day to day career as manager, Spurs had no choice but to start bright.
We did, and the breakthrough came at 30' when Archie Grey created a fine chance that led to Kolo Muoni heading home to narrow the difference to two goals. Madrid, who had absorbed pressure in the half finished with some very dangerous chances but couldn't convert.
As the second half began our defensive openness led to a goal by Simeone. We responded with a beautiful strike from Xavi Simons five minutes later. Madrid ramped up the attack as the second half progressed, taking advantage of our need to score, and that paid dividends as Alvarez, who was sending our defenders into conniptions all night, found Hancko at the near post, where he walked through three stationary defenders and headed home.
From there the game petered out. A late penalty to Xavi meant we ended the match with a second leg win, which the crowd appreciated. but bundled out of Europe. This season now sees us with nothing left to play for now but our survival in the Premier League. That's not guaranteed, nor is Igor Tudor's tenure.
Dark times.