Pacific FC will honour the FIFA women’s soccer World Cup, the story of the summer in sports, with an evening featuring female sports with several promotions and also local Olympians on hand for autographs today at Starlight Stadium.
With a Canadian women’s pro soccer league equivalent of the Canadian Premier League proposed to start in 2025, there is even an anticipatory sense to the occasion.
That will wrap around the hotly anticipated CPL encounter at 7 p.m. between PFC and Forge FC of Hamilton, Ont. There have been four CPL championships since the long-awaited Canadian men’s pro domestic league was established in 2019 and Forge FC has won three of them and has appeared in every championship game. PFC won the other league title with a 1-0 victory over the Hammers in the 2021 final.
“Forge is a good team with a good coach. Both teams respect each other,” said PFC assistant coach Armando Sá.
The Tridents and Hammers — along with Calgary’s Cavalry FC, which has knocked on the door consistently but not yet knocked it down — represent the Big 3 over the first four seasons of the CPL. It’s not surprising to find the clubs again at the top of the table.
PFC leads with 26 points with seven wins, three losses and five draws. Cavalry FC is in second place on 24 points at 6-3-6 in wins-losses-draws and Forge in third place at 6-5-5 for 23 points, but the Hammers have played one more game than the Tridents and Cavalry.
After a torrid start to the season, PFC has cooled with two losses and a draw over the last three games, following a bit the club’s pattern from last season.
But Sá has been around and isn’t panicking. He was capped six times for Mozambique and played pro for 16 seasons with Benfica, Villareal, Espanyol, Rio Ave, Braga and Leeds United and has seen enough to know: “It’s normal to have your ups and downs.”
When asked about PFC scoring more than one goal only once in its last seven games, Sá answered: “We’re creating chances. If we weren’t that would not be a good sign. But we are working hard and pushing to be consistent.”
PFC is returning home after losing 2-1 on the East Coast to HFX in Halifax and playing to a scoreless draw in the Greater Toronto Area against York United.
“It’s been a long week with long travel,” said Sá.
But that is sporting life in a sa国际传媒-wide league. It’s a big country. “It’s not easy. Everybody knows that. But the boys are responding well,” said Sá.
In its fifth season, several CPL storylines have developed, not the least of which is that former PFC players Terran Campbell and Alessandro Hojabrpour have been with the Hammers since 2022, bringing an added dimension to every meeting between the teams.
Campbell is the second-leading scorer in Tridents history with 25 goals in three seasons while Hojabrpour accounted for the biggest goal PFC has scored in giving the Tridents victory over the Hammers in the 2021 CPL championship game at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton.
The teams have split their previous two games this season with Forge FC winning 1-0 in its last visit to the Island and PFC returning the favour with a 1-0 victory in the Steel City.
