CanPL Finals Leg Two: Preview, Game Thread and How To Watch

FT — It’s all over in Calgary. Forge are the first CPL Finals champions! Cavalry dominated most of the possession, but Forge were sensational defensively, and are deserving of winning the first North Star Shield.

90’ + 4’ — Cavalry FC 0-1 Forge FC — Forge take a 1-0 lead on a full-field breakaway, and take a 2-0 lead in the tie. It’s all over for Cavalry. There were shouts for a penalty at the other end of the pitch as Zator goes down in the box, but the ref looked the other way.

90’ — Five minutes of time to be added on. It’s now or never for Cavalry.

80’ — 10 minutes left! Still time for Cavalry to find an equalizer, but Forge have been excellent defensively in this half.

68’ — Jose Escalante came off the bench and nearly gave Cavalry the lead on a free kick with his first touch.

66’ — Cavalry are dominating possession of the ball. They are throwing everything at Forge, but the visitors are holding on.

54’ — Brown heads the ball down to Pasquotti, but the winger fires it over. Cavalry look due for a goal.

52’ — Malonga comes close again! He finally headed it down, but this time it bounced down and over the bar.

51’ — Nik Ledgerwood goes into the book.

HT — The first half is over in Calgary. Cavalry look like the better team thus far, but only just. The home side had the majority of the scoring chances, but haven’t capitalized on any of them yet. There are 45 minutes left in the inaugural Canadian Premier League season, with everything (and by that I mean the North Star Shield) left to play for.

42’ — Novak picks up Forge’s first yellow of the game.

36’ — Cavalry come close again from a set piece. This time it’s Zator who heads it over the bar.

29’ — Tristan Borges just got smoked by a clearance by a Cavalry defender, and it looks like his mouth is bleeding. He looks to be fine to continue, and is back on the pitch.

18’ — Cavalry’s Nico Pasquotti picks up the game’s first yellow card for taking down Daniel Krutzen.

13’ — Dominique Malonga has the best chance of the game so far. The Cavalry striker heads it over the bar after an excellent cross in from the right.

1’ — They’re underway in Calgary! The final game of the first Canadian Premier League season is upon us.

Lineups:

Cavalry FC:

Forge FC:

Preview

The inaugural Canadian Premier League season will come to a close Saturday afternoon, as the second leg of the CanPL Finals will take place at Spruce Meadows in Calgary, Alberta.

After 99 matches, game number 100 will see the first champion in CPL history crowned, after Forge FC beat Cavalry FC 1-0 in Hamilton a week ago in the first leg.

Forge FC received a huge boost, as both Dominic Samuel and Bertrand Owundi will be back after serving suspensions in the first leg. Furthermore, their leading scorer (and current Golden Boot leader) Tristan Borges had his red card from the first leg overturned by Canada Soccer, while Cavalry’s Joel Waterman did not.

The winner of the CanPL Finals will pick up the North Star Shield, which was revealed last week.

Down 1-0 on aggregate, Cavalry will have to win by two goals in order to lift the shield after 120 minutes. If Forge score an away goal, it’ll be a lot harder for them to win, obviously, but they had the best home record in the league this season, and were the best team all year long, so it would be foolish to rule them out.

A 1-0 win by Cavalry would send the game to penalties.

Kickoff is at 4 pm ET, and the match is available on OneSoccer and CBC. OneSoccer will have live coverage from 3.

Team news:

Suspensions

Joel Waterman (Cavalry) – Red Card

Injuries

Chris Serban (Cavalry) – Out (Knee)

Dean Northover (Cavalry) – Out (ACL)

How To Watch

Match date/time: Saturday, November 2nd, 4 p.m. EST

Stream: OneSoccer — Kickoff at 4, live pregame coverage from 3

TV channel: CBC — There will be a re-run at 1:30 am EST on Sunday morning. The first 1:30...