Out in British Columbia, Vancouver FC is getting set to host Cavalry FC at Willoughby Community Park, in what could be a massive matchup for the visitors.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot for the hosts to play for – while they’re assured of finishing last place in the table after drawing Atlético Ottawa last week, they’re battling to avoid setting the record for the fewest points in a CPL season.
Having already disrupted the CPL Shield race with that draw against Ottawa, which came just a week after they also drew fellow Shield contenders Forge, Vancouver will feel they’re on a nice run to end the year, too.
Currently unbeaten in five CPL matches (2W-3D-0L), they’ve found a bit of form as fall has come around, doing well to build off their magical run to the Canadian Championship final, where they fell to eventual champions, the Vancouver Whitecaps, 4-2 in an entertaining match at BC Place.
“I think we’ve caught our stride at the right time, to be honest,” Vancouver’s interim head coach, Martin Nash, said this week. “Since (early August), I think we’ve played well, we haven’t always got the results, but then once the results started coming, I think we’ve been in a bit of a flow since.”
As for Cavalry, though, their goal for ‘The Outcome’ is quite clear – they need to win.
With a win, they secure third place ahead of the playoffs, which allows them to avoid the #4 vs #5 knockout match in the first game of the postseason, as they’d instead skip ahead to the semifinal qualifier, which they’d host.
Therefore, while they’re still disappointed that they won’t finish inside the top two for a third straight season, making their path towards lifting a second straight North Star Cup all the more difficult, they know that their title defence would be massively aided by them finishing third instead of fourth or fifth.
Unfortunately for Cavalry, however, they do enter this match in a bit of a rut, as they’ve dropped points in their last three games (0W-2D-1L), which would have allowed them to enter this matchday with that third-place spot already secured. They won’t rue those opportunities too much, as they still control their destiny, but those dropped points would loom large should they fail to win this match, however.
“That’s all we can ask for, for our destiny to be up to us, not anybody else,” Cavalry head coach, Tommy Wheeldon Jr., said. “We don’t expect any favours across the board; everyone’s got their own positions to play for, and we’ve got our own position to play for.”
“We go into this with a strong squad against a decent team, and we get to control our own outcome.”
In terms of player availability, Vancouver will be without Jay Herdman and Zach Verhoven, but otherwise, they have a full squad to choose from. Meanwhile, Cavalry welcomed back Ali Musse, Shamit Shome and Mihail Gherisamencov from international duty this week, but they’ll be without Diego Gutiérrez as he returns from an injury.
