Final Canadian Premier League playoff spots locked, Valour narrowly miss out again

The penultimate week of the Canadian Premier League regular season has come to a close, and all four playoff teams are now known.

The week of games started on Vancouver Island as Pacific FC hosted FC Edmonton. Moments into the game, Manny Aparicio stripped the ball off an FC Edmonton player before taking it up the left sideline and crossing the ball into the box, finding Marco Bustos who headed the ball past Edmonton goalkeeper Andreas Vaikla to give Pacific the lead 27 seconds into the game.

Pacific would hold on to their one-goal lead for the rest of the game, setting up a chance of locking another trip to the playoffs if Cavalry beat or drew Valour FC on Sunday.

Skipping ahead to the final game of the weekend. Cavalry FC was looking to clinch their fourth straight postseason appearance. Entering the game against Valour, they, just like Pacific, only needed a draw or better to lock one of the four seeds.

Cavalry opened up the score just before the 38-minute mark of the first half. Jose Escalante started the play with a throw-in to Mikaël Cantave deep in the Valour half. Cantave then worked his way around a defender and crossed the ball into the box finding Ali Musse. Musse headed the ball down towards the goal where it deflected off Joe Mason and past Valour goalkeeper Rayane Yesli into the corner of the net.

At the start of the second half, as Valour was pressing for an equalizer, Daryl Fordyce intercepted a clearing attempt from Escalante. Fordyce moved the ball forward to Sean Rea who chipped the ball into the Cavalry box finding an outstretched Billy Forbes who headed the ball past Cavs goalkeeper Marco Carducci.

Canadian Premier League – Cavalry FC v Valour FC – Calgary, Alberta, Canada Oct, 2, 2022 Valour FC Attacker Billy Forbes heads the ball past Cavalry goalkeeper Marco Carducci for Valour’s only goal. (Photo Credit: CFC Media Mike Sturk)

Just before the 81st minute of the game, Cavalry’s Dan Klomp took a short throw-in to Roberto Alarcón. On the first touch, Alarcón sent the ball to the middle of the pitch, finding Musse. Musse settled the ball down before firing a rocket off his left into the top of the Valour goal to give the Cavs their second lead of the afternoon.

From there the Cavalry were able to weather the pressure from Valour and take the game 2-1. The win for the Cavalry continues their post-season streak of every single season and also helped the defending CPL champions, Pacific FC, lock their spot in the playoffs.

The loss also means Valour narrowly missed out on the playoffs for a second straight year. In 2021 they missed out by one point in the final week of the season.

Saturday also saw Forge lock a playoff spot as they beat York United 2-0. Forge is the only other team to match Cavalry in making the playoffs every season.

Heading into the final week of regular season matches sees a mid-week battle between Forge FC and Pacific FC. The match was rescheduled from August as Pacific was playing in the CONCACAF League.

Saturday and Sunday will close out the season, Atletico Ottawa, Forge, Pacific, and Cavalry will be looking to secure home-field advantage for the playoffs.

Saturday’s matches:

• Valour FC @ FC Edmonton – 1 p.m. MST
• Pacific FC @ Cavalry FC – 4 p.m. MST

Sunday’s matches:

• HFX Wanderers @ Forge FC – 1 p.m. EST
• York United @ Atletico Ottawa – 6 p.m. EST

Playoffs

The 2022 CPL Season format. (Photo Credit: Canadian Premier League)

CPL playoffs will be two legs for the first round. The 3rd seed will host the 2nd seed and the 4th seed will host the 1st seed in the first match on October 15.

The 2nd seed will host the 3rd and the 1st seed will host the 4th seed in the second match on October 22nd.

The winners of each semi-final will meet in the finals on October 29, with the highest seed hosting.

The semi-finals will not be using the away goal rule, meaning if both teams are tied after 90 minutes of the 2nd game, there will be a 30-minute extra time followed by a penalty shootout.