A Beginner’s Guide To Wednesday’s Canadian Championship Games

So, you’ve drunk from the World Cup chalice and have acquired a taste for knockout football. Perhaps you’ve been spoiled by the group stage throwing four matches at you in a single day, all from the same tournament, with teams leaving everything on the line in the hunt for glory.

Well, do I have good news for you: while Canada is now out of the running, and even while the World Cup takes a reprieve on Wednesday, you’ve got so much Canadian football on the menu tomorrow. You see, the World Cup quarter-finals are about to arrive, but the Canadian Championship quarter-finals are already here.

That means you’ve got four quarter-final matches on the menu from 3:00PM EST in the afternoon all the way through to 10:30PM on Wednesday, and what’s more, it’s got all three levels of Canada’s football pyramid: the semi-professional underdogs, the working-class Canadian Premier League sides, and the elite Major League Soccer teams, the Goliaths in these inevitable David-versus-Goliaths matchups.

The tournament has already witnessed incredible cupsets in the opening round, with Atletico Ottawa sinking Toronto FC 3-1 at BMO Field and the semi-pro ranks of CS Saint-Laurent ousting CPL side Inter Toronto (it was a devastating opening round to be a Torontonian, to be sure).

CS Saint-Laurent vs Forge FC (3:00PM EST)

Scrappy underdog CS Saint-Laurent is Quebec’s semi-pro champion. They’re no stranger to punching upwards in this competition, having beaten Halifax two years ago in the opening round. In fact, they repeated the feat against Inter Toronto this year, but will now host the Canadian Premier League’s winningest team, Forge FC.

Don’t sleep on this side, however: they’re fearless. With some former professionals like Cedric Toussaint and Zakaria Bahous in the ranks – along with former Haiti international Jems Geffrard in the coaching staff – they’ve got big stones. Goalkeeper Martin Cantona – the nephew of that Eric Cantona – has provided heroics in spades between the sticks. They’re second in Ligue1 Quebec and in confident form,

That said, hosting Hamilton powerhouse Forge FC is no small task. Forge has made several deep runs in the tournament and has made a habit of dispatching Quebecois competition, including Major League Soccer’s CF Montreal in the previous two consecutive tournaments. They’re a well-oiled machine and a top organization, the proverbial flagbearer of the Canadian Premier League, always up for big games and with the most consistent roster in the league.

Forge boss Bobby Smyrniotis undoubtedly deserves a shot in Major League Soccer, though all the while he personifies the Forge DNA: fierce, never giving an inch, always two steps ahead. Expect a lot of movement up top and mid-game retooling as he sorts out what is best against CS Saint-Laurent. Bobby takes nothing lightly – they’ll want to come out storming and dampen any suggestion of a cupset early on.

It’s a fearless, attack-minded semi-pro team versus one of the nation’s best and a consistent deep-run team in the Canadian Championship. Expect goals.

FC Supra du Quebec vs Atletico Ottawa

At 7:00PM in the very same stadium – a wonderful day out if you happen to be in La Belle Province, but still a great affair when tuning in via OneSoccer – you will find Quebec’s brand new Canadian Premier League side hosting Atletico Ottawa, who knocked TFC out of the tournament and happen to be the reigning CPL champions.

FC Supra du Quebec has built its entire roster out of 100% Quebecois players, an ambitious roster design that brings the likes of Athletic Bilbao’s Basque-only player recruitment to mind. For Supra, as you’ll find from the front-first culture of Quebecois football, this is a side that likes to attack as one, bringing numbers forward and showcasing fast-footwork, almost futsal-like skill moves. It’s Quebec’s version of joga bonito, and it’s fun to watch.

It’s been a mixed bag for them in Canada’s top flight so far: they’re scoring goals, but they’re conceding them, too. FC Supra just slipped to seventh out of eight teams in league standings. Atletico Ottawa, meanwhile, is the reigning league champion (a fact decided in a literal blizzard, by the way – patriotism levels are high), but is also suffering a mixed bag of form.

The nation’s capital hasn’t really done a great job in replacing star talent like Samuel Salter and David Rodriguez, entering Wednesday’s match with interim head coach Drew Beckie in charge following their head coach’s move to Mexico’s top flight. Former Barcelona prospect Ballou Tabla will turn heads, having put in a vintage shift to net a hat trick against Toronto FC in the opening round.

So, watch out for him as he aims to put in some goals against a club representing his own province – football is full of fun irony like that.

Atletico Ottawa had beaten Supra twice in league play, so the club will aim to go three for three in enemy territory.Interim head coach Drew Beckie has been in charge of three games with Ottawa so far, with fifteen goals produced. We could only be so lucky for a five-goal thriller to keep the average going.

Vancouver FC vs CF Montreal

It will be a year ago to the day that Vancouver FC was being hailed by their own head coach as ‘The best last-placed team in the history of the league’. They, uh, have a new head coach now, and even reached the Canadian Championship final last year despite being last in CPL standings at the time.

New head coach Martin Nash has the club finding a strong rhythm right now: after massively underperforming their xG at the start of the season, the Eagles have really struck a good rhythm. They’ve taken a chance on former English Premier League striker Lys Mousset, having recruited nicely with Burundi forward Mohamed Amissi (who bagged a hat trick in his last game) and energetic full-back Morey Doner, while the likes of former Whitecaps midfielder Nicolas Mezquida and the tireless Elage Bah do their stuff up top, too.

They’ll need to muster all the strength they can get against CF Montreal, an MLS side operating on a budget many times higher than Vancouver’s own. The likes of Prince Owusu or Ivan Jaime make more individually than the entire VFC player roster, and by default one expects an MLS side to easily brush beyond a CPL team. That hasn’t been the case in the past, however, and after Montreal was dunked out of this tournament twice by Forge, expect a very respectful starting lineup from the comparative giant.

The MLS visitors are eleventh in their own league standings, an outside before for playoffs. Make no mistake: winning the Canadian Championship is the most straightforward route for an MLS side to qualify for the Champions Cup, so there is a lot on the line for these sides beyond domestic pride. Montreal used to be dominant in this tournament, but Joey Saputo’s club has spent the last few years in a whirlwind of coaches and tough results. They need a win.

Vancouver Whitecaps vs Cavalry FC

The Whitecaps are the four-time repeat champions of the cup and, despite the complete insanity that is their possible relocation in the American league they call home, have a star-studded roster headlined by German icon Thomas Muller, perhaps one of the most likable faces in all of soccer. He’s the most-decorated German footballer of all time and a veteran of four World Cups, completely embracing Vancouver as his new home.

This is a fixture with history behind it: back in 2019, Cavalry made history in the CPL’s own inaugural season by defeating the Whitecaps over two legs, becoming the first CPL team to do so. The ‘Caps would later lose to Pacific in a seven-goal thriller followed by a head coach sacking, need penalties to best Cavalry in ‘22, and copped a one-nil loss to Cavalry again in 2024, though they won on aggregate. Suffice to say, they will not take Cavalry lightly.

Calgary’s Canadian Premier League side is a perennial heavyweight in the country’s top flight and has put in some strong showings in this tournament. While their own star German striker Tobias Warschewski may not be available for the bout – he was absent in last weekend’s action – they’ve got a resilient roster who can produce goals from all aspects of the pitch, with big Dutch defender Daan Klomp already calling one MLS side arrogant this tournament alone.

The Whitecaps haven’t played a match since May 23, while Cavalry is on a winning streak – this has potential to be a firecracker.

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The Canadian Championship will be available on the OneSoccer streaming service. fuboTV also carries this channel, but you won’t be able to pick matches if two are playing concurrently, instead relying on the main feed. In any case, however, you’ve got a day of delicious domestic football locked in on Wednesday, and hopefully you’ll like what you see.

And, hey, if you really like what you’ve read – buy us a coffee? This website actually lost money covering the World Cup. It is not easy being independent and ad-free by choice.

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