MONTREAL — CF Montreal and Forge FC enter the second leg of their Canadian Championship quarterfinal with different outlooks.
Montreal hosts Forge at Stade Saputo on Wednesday night after falling behind 1-0 to the lower-tier Canadian Premier League side in the first leg at Hamilton Stadium on May 20.
Mired at the bottom of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference with a 3-13-5 record, Montreal needs a result at home to salvage any realistic chance of winning a trophy this season.
"It's a final," interim head coach Marco Donadel said. "It's a super important game for us, where every detail will be important. Every stop, every situation, every set piece. The first minute, the last minute, the overtime will be like a final.
"It's the perfect night here at home to show what we can do."
While Montreal treats this as a do-or-die match, Forge head coach Bobby Smyrniotis wouldn’t consider it a massive disappointment if his squad can’t complete the upset.
"We're not playing in a final on Wednesday," he said. "It's not for a trophy, it's just a round that we need to get past and nothing is guaranteed in these types of games.
"Your season is not based on this one game."
In league play, Forge ranks second in the CPL standings with a 7-0-6 record for 27 points, one less than Atletico Ottawa.
The four-time league champions — and six-time finalists in six seasons — stunned Montreal with a 2-1 victory at Stade Saputo last year, advancing to the cup semifinal 3-2 on aggregate.
No CPL team, however, has ever won the Canadian Championship, which guarantees a spot in next year’s CONCACAF Champions League.
"It's something that Forge will win at some point, hopefully while I'm here, but if not at some time it will come and it will for a team in the Canadian Premier League, that's for sure," Smyrniotis said. “If that could be this year that's great, but we don't think too far ahead.
"We've got to be at our best against a team that's playing for entry in the Champions League as well … here's your quickest route to do it for all the teams involved in this competition, so we're going to get the best of CF Montreal."
The three-time defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps host Valour FC at BC Place Stadium in Wednesday’s other quarterfinal after a 2-2 draw in the first leg.
Montreal and Forge, despite playing in different leagues, are familiar opponents. The two sides have met in the Canadian Championship for five straight years, with Montreal winning the first three matchups before last year’s disappointment.
Brian Wright's 78th-minute goal gave Forge the 1-0 advantage in the first leg on a night Montreal centre back Joel Waterman described his team’s first-half performance as "unacceptable."
"They were better on second balls, better at battles," said Waterman on Tuesday after recently playing for Canada at the Gold Cup. "I felt like we were second-best at everything.
"Tomorrow it can’t be that way."
Not only has Waterman met Smyrniotis's squad while playing for Montreal, the 29-year-old from Langley, B.C., also witnessed the beginning of Forge's dynasty when he played for Cavalry FC in the CPL's inaugural season.
Waterman became the first player to transfer from CPL to MLS in 2020, and he says the league has only grown since.
"You see the gap getting smaller and smaller every year," he said. "(Forge have) been one of the best teams in the CPL since the very beginning.
"They still have a lot of the same core. They're very, very well coached. That's why they've had a lot of success in a lot of different tournaments and in the league, so we know what they're about."
Montreal was the heavy underdog this past weekend when Lionel Messi put on a show with two spectacular goals in a 4-1 Inter Miami win on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Montreal will boast the stronger side on paper, but Donadel said that won’t matter if his group doesn’t treat it like a must-win game.
"At the beginning of the game, we are all 11 (versus) 11. It's a lot about desire. Desire to show and desire to win," he said. "Tomorrow is a game where yes, we have the quality to win, and we need to show that we want to win."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 8, 2025.
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press
