Could Vancouver FC Finish As The CPL’s Worst-Ever Team?

Having lost their last five league matches in a row, Vancouver FC stumbled out of playoff contention in miserable fashion this weekend by copping a 5-2 home loss against the team just one spot above them in league standings – the only other CPL team that hasn’t tasted playoff action ever.

There are no teams below Vancouver. Just above.

The VFC home venue has seen just one home win in the span of just over a calendar year, though you have to look outside of league play to find it. This weekend’s loss did more than chip away more dignity, however: it mathematically eliminated Vancouver FC from playoff contention with over a month of football still left to go. Even if interim head coach Martin Nash somehow engineered six straight wins, the numbers simply cannot fall in their favour.

With their last three games coming against the current top three, in fact, Vancouver is actually on track to record the all-time worst league performance by a CPL club.

Afshin Ghotbi had infamously called Vancouver FC the best worst-place team in the history of the league this summer, so depending on your interpretation, he might have foreshadowed this – or perhaps the stars are aligning for a miracle Canadian Championship run, with little else where for the Eagles squad to play for.

The worst points finish in league history goes to the now-defunct FC Edmonton, who were ownerless and propped-up by the league by then, finishing with a paltry 20 points in their final campaign. That squad was assembled on a shoestring budget with little expectations. It isn’t the same for Vancouver, whose first head coach said they’d be fighting for a title by year two, and maybe even grasping it by year three.

Instead, Vancouver’s third season might see them become the first team in league history to finish under twenty points after a full campaign.

Right now, Vancouver FC is currently recording 0.5 points per game. If the club stays on trend, it will finish the campaign with 14 points after 28 matches played, six under the historically bad FC Edmonton season. In fact, that’s only one point above Cavalry’s tally the 2020 pandemic bubble tournament’s regular season…which lasted seven games, not twenty-eight.

What’s more, Vancouver FC has already conceded just as many goals as the 2022 Eddies side, but still have six more games to play. The defense has been objectively worse, and the attack will be stretched to match the 2022 Eddies’ tally of 31 goals.

That 2022 Eddies side did have Tobias Warschewski, who contributed to over a third of those goals. By comparison, Vancouver FC doesn’t really have an individual hero up front. Player positions have jostled throughout the season as Ghotbi tried to get the engine moving, and while his successor Martin Nash has bumped the goalscoring metric up to two per game in league play (good for over twice the offensive output of the Ghotbi era this season), the team is also conceding a little more, so the results still haven’t come.

That isn’t to say there isn’t individual talent to be seen on Vancouver FC: there’s plenty of it, but the squad cohesion simply isn’t there. Perhaps that’s indicative of waiting too long to change out from Ghotbi, or maybe a failure to replace some key talent who left in the offseason. In any case, one should expect a significant offseason for Vancouver FC if they’re to restore status as a more competitive side.

The 2025 CPL season started with a lot of talent going outbound that needed replacing: Moses Dyer opted to leave for Europe, while Gabriel Bitar was traded to York United for peanuts and defender Rocco Romeo being loosed. With Ben Fisk retiring and star youngsters being sold, the club did bring in Terran Campbell and Kunle Dada-Luke, with a spattering of youth prospects and a clump of internationals being signed, but not arriving straight away.

Even off the pitch, the club restructured a lot of internal staff positions after failing to make an attendance splash following their all-in dive to a general admission structure. As the season progressed, however, it became very clear that the VFC was in trouble both on and off the pitch: after twelve games played, eight of them finished in losses, and home attendance proved sparse.

The midseason trades started with promise through Nicolas Mezquida, but turned perplexing when top CPL striker Alejandro Diaz was bizarrely loaned to Vancouver’s league rivals in exchange for nothing, if not a reminder of how odd multi-club ownership can lead to some bizarre player movement. To their credit, TFC prospect Hugo Mbongue was brought in as a Diaz replacement.

Vancouver has also brought in Jay Herdman for a fresh start from Cavalry, though he hasn’t had much of a sniff – 98 minutes over five matchdays – while Mikael Cantave was finally loosed after failing to show up this year.

To its credit, the club has done well in terms of youth development, selling youngsters like Grady McDonnell and James Cameron to Club Brugge and the Colorado Rapids last offseason, with teenage talent Emrick Fotsing flourishing this year. The Eagles have tallied almost 6,000 domestic U-21 youth minutes this season, three times the league requirement and more than all but Atletico Ottawa.

Youth development wins praise, but does not put butts in seats if the team is not succeeding on the pitch. Vancouver FC is bottom of the league in average attendance with 1,453, well under half of their own average from last year. That’s enough sparse seats that even AI struggles to fill in those stands.

In short, it has been a dismal year both on and off the pitch for Vancouver FC. It’s improbable that the club will finish with enough gusto to avoid a league-record worst season, while owners SixFive Sports and Entertainment still have their hands full figuring out how to draw spectators in a crowded Vancouver sports market. Their most-viewed moment this year might be an own-goal featured by a YouTuber – it’s just been that kind of year.

With a potentially record-breaking wooden spoon and an unwanted record fast approaching, at least they can say they’re the best worst-placed team in history. Perhaps.

Header Image Photo Credit: Trevor MacMillan