Match Thread: November 2, 2019 - Cavalry FC v Forge FC - Finals - 2nd Leg

[baulderdash77]

4 minutes ago, SoccMan said:

Come on I attended a majority of York 9 games this year and I’m a hard core soccer fan, but when I realized they would not be winning the second season as early as almost late July my interest and the interest of a couple of other people I attended games with waned drastically , and York 9 was practically giving tickets out for free in the end, if they had something still to play for there would be no need for all those giveaways fans would have stayed engaged longer because their team still had a chance at the championship.

Part of the problem was the playoff format and 2 completely dominant teams.  With just a 2 team playoff everyone else was out of it fairly early.  If there’s going to be playoffs then there has to be 4 teams or even 3 (wildcard and bye).

Every league has some of this unfortunately.

[dyslexic nam]

I would def support an expanded playoff format.  

[Grandbloke]

29 minutes ago, dyslexic nam said:

I would def support an expanded playoff format.  

I would too.  Single season, 2-leg semifinals and a one game final.

[Stouffvillain]

Well this was exactly the worst case scenario with this format. One team wins both seasons, gets nothing and loses a home and home to not be crowned champions. 
Full credit to Forge though. They deserved the win. Over 2 legs they were the better team. If Cavalry had started the 1st half the way they played the second half today I think it would’ve been a different story. 
Edgar was MOTM for me without question. So many no nonsense clearances that stopped Cavalry attacks. 

[Winnipeg Fury]

 

A great first season for CPL.  Impressed with the on-field product.  Far better than first year CSL back in 87, although the ref's were probably worse.  Probably on par or close to first year MLS in terms of quality.

Well done to both Cavalry and Forge.  Huge upsets vs Whitecaps and great play in CONCACAF.  They put the rest of us to shame.

I doubt there's an owner in the league that doesn't want expanded play-offs and I think most fans will also want it.  It would have meant the other 5 teams were in it until the bitter end.  Everyone wins, ......fans, ownership and players.

All I want now is to hear about expansion.  It would be nice to have an 8th team for 2020, but if it doesn't work, so be it.  I can live with that if they are announcing additional clubs for 2021.

 

 

[gator]

Just home from the Battalion viewing party, needless to say it was an epic day for us, The EndZone which is a very large bar was packed with supporters including drums! It was a very tense match in poor conditions, I think Bobby played this almost perfectly, the 2 second leg away CONCACAF matches were an invulable learning experience for the team which served us well today! I felt Forge needed a scorer other than Borges, I still feel that way and was hoping for Simeon Jackson to join when he was out of contract, instead we signed David Edgar and the man should take a bow, he was by far the MOTM in a near perfect performance! It feels great to win the inaugural CPL Championship, the game has truly arrived in The Hammer!

[Footscray]

Well that was the first CPL game I've watched today and I've gotta say I found it cringey... Forge loses both seasons, fails to qualify yet gets in on a technicality, wins and celebrates like they've done a world cup.  Also that was a pretty clear penalty at the end for me that should have been called.  Overall not a good look imo.

I want this league to survive badly and to get a team in Kelowna, but the optics of this league format are horrible.  That championship has a big asterix for me.

Hard not to look at the way the season played out and not perceive that Bob Young's team had more than it's share of breaks with the easy concacaf league path, best player getting reinstated for the finals and getting into a final they had no right to be in.

Time to clean some of this stuff up moving forward.  Appreciate the reffing is just getting started and will get better and at least the Concacaf qualifying is fixed.

Drop the playoffs and do a single league table, quit with the mickey mouse stuff.  Or if you're going to keep this format as much as I think playoffs are for mouth breathers, if one team wins both seasons they are/were the champ. Full stop.

For god's sake don't expand the playoffs more and make the regular season meaningless like all the other NA sports leagues.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Footscray

[CanSuffer]

1 hour ago, Winnipeg Fury said:

I doubt there's an owner in the league that doesn't want expanded play-offs and I think most fans will also want it.  It would have meant the other 5 teams were in it until the bitter end.  Everyone wins, ......fans, ownership and players.

 

 

There's more than a few of us that don't want expanded playoffs. It devalues the regular season too much. The purest view would be single season with the top of the table being the champion. No arguing who is the best over the duration of the year.  But the North American fan wants their excitement in the playoffs.  ... No matter that a lot of them tune-out large parts of the season.

I think I'm on board now with the CPL compromise : Spring champ plays Fall champ in 2 legs. I want to see an even split though : 14 games for both seasons. But gives us some playoff fever while keeping the spring/fall seasons meaningful. Disadvantage is the full regular season gets lost in the shuffle. But I notice people still talk about it all the time anyway ...

I was worried about the scenario that's now just played out. Spring champ is the same team as the Fall champ and they end up losing the Championship series. But now that it's happened, it just seems that you can't take anything away from Cavalry. They're still the Spring champ. They're still the Fall champ. They just lost over 8 days to a rising Forge team that surged too much at the end.

 

 

[gator]

I didn't really want to get into this on championship eve but people have to know Forge had no incentive to win the fall season after a guaranteed place in the final, with THF being booked for a Ticat game tonight the chance to host the 2nd leg of the final as fall champs was removed,! Players were rested in the run in and results suffered, at the end of the day apparently Forge has done what needed to be done to become the 1st year champs whether people like it or not!

[gator]

21 minutes ago, Lofty said:

^ The CPL format definitely still needs work. It just seems wrong that you can win both seasons and not be crowned champions.

To be perfectly honest, I did not find the final playoff series very exciting but I forced myself to watch anyway.

There is a massive difference when you are emotinally attached to one of the participants Doug, the match at home had many twists and turns and a good solid defensive performance and strategy won out today! This was the most excitement I've had for a football match(es) since we went to the Wembley Championship Play Off Final in 2014! 

[lazlo_80]

6 minutes ago, Lofty said:

I get it Carl, it will always be intense when it is your team. But it needs to be intense and interesting for everybody else too! I just didn't feel it though. As much as Cavalry annoyed me, I could not shake the feeling that they were the true champs no matter what happened in that home and away playoff, which made it seem more like an exhibition to me. Although of course I understand that fans and players of Cavalry and Forge would not have felt that way, I wonder about everybody else.

Not a lot of action on the match thread here, I have to say.

you play to the rules that are set at the start of the year. if the goal is to make the finals and win them you adjust and set your team to try and do that.

i think what you're speaking to could be a product of the league itself. two teams ran away with the league. The other 5 weren't really playing for anything for the last 2 months or so. Strangely i had the opposite reaction to you. I feel like i'd been watching exhibition games for the last 2 months (because it was always gonna be these two teams in the finals) while to me these games were the first ones in a while that DID feel like there was something on the line. More teams would help, and frankly better teams outside the top 2.

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Footscray said:

 

For god's sake don't expand the playoffs more and make the regular season meaningless like all the other NA sports leagues.

Regular season in NA sports leagues aren't meaningless. If the CPL went to single season, and had four teams make the playoffs, the regular season games would be played to determine a regular season champion, eliminate the three poorest teams (and more when the league expands), and seed the top 4 teams for the playoffs.  The fans can choose what they consider more important, the regular season champions or the playoff champions-and I'm pretty sure I know which one they'd choose.

[lazlo_80]

Not to take anything away from the game though. WAY TO GO FORGE!

[lazlo_80]

1 minute ago, Lofty said:

Of course. I wasn't really criticizing anything in particular, just sharing how I felt. Even I can't really say why. If others felt differently and were invested in the Finals, that is great!

Didn't take it as criticism at all. Honestly thought your points were totally fair, was just sharing my take as well.

[lazlo_80]

10 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Regular season in NA sports leagues aren't meaningless. If the CPL went to single season, and had four teams make the playoffs, the regular season games would be played to determine a regular season champion, eliminate the three poorest teams (and more when the league expands), and seed the top 4 teams for the playoffs.  The fans can choose what they consider more important, the regular season champions or the playoff champions-and I'm pretty sure I know which one they'd choose.

...yep. they'd choose the one that the league decided was the real championships that they celebrate with gold merch that says "CPL Champions" on it.................as of right now, that's the playoff one.

[RJB]

4 hours ago, Grandbloke said:

I would too.  Single season, 2-leg semifinals and a one game final.

No way. Why not be the outlier and just have a single table. That Forge wins when Cavalry was the best all season is such a shame. When you have playoffs, average teams inevitably win, and great teams don’t get what they deserve. At least in CPL Forge wasn’t average, but anything more than two teams is silly (and playoffs themselves are silly, as they discredit the whole season). 

[Stanley]

7 minutes ago, Lofty said:

Well, when you throw all the regular season points into the trash before you start the play offs...

And when you make a token presentation for the one and give a stonking great piece of silverware to the other and call them The Champions, it doesn't seem as though the fans are really making the choice.

I'm talking about the future. Have a great piece of silverware for the regular season champion as well.  Have a trophy for that and one for the playoff champion. Then the fans can decide for themselves what they care more about.

[Stanley]

9 minutes ago, lazlo_80 said:

...yep. they'd choose the one that the league decided was the real championships that they celebrate with gold merch that says "CPL Champions" on it.................as of right now, that's the playoff one.

I agree.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Find it hard to take Hamilton seriously as champions given how it completely devalues the two regular season titles by the Cavalry, which determined playoff entry and arguably should have been enough to clinch things, but I guess it is what it is.

Edited November 3, 2019 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[SthMelbRed]

On Friday, November 01, 2019 at 2:00 AM, Lofty said:

The way cards are handed out like confetti these days is ridiculous.

Red cards should be reserved for things like deliberate and cynical foul play; and the Waterman handball does not qualify.

It would be better to change the rules so that the punishment fits the crime, such as awarding a "breakaway penalty" (like in hockey) when a foul outside the area prevents a breakaway scoring chance.

The Waterman red had no merit whatsoever. And while the referee had the power to give it, he was not obliged to. Exactly the same situation occurred in TFC's playoff match last night: Bradley committed a foul in the area that prevented a clear scoring chance and was given a yellow, not a red. That is how a competent ref handles it under the current rules.

Without having seen either of the incidents in question, I'm going to guess that your grasp on the actual Laws of the Game is far weaker than your compulsion to comment on fucking everything. 

[narduch]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Find it hard to take Hamilton seriously as champions given how it completely devalues the two regular season titles by the Cavalry, which determined playoff entry and arguably should have been enough to clinch things, but I guess it is what it is.

Will it be hard to take this year's MLS Cup Champions seriously? Considering how well LAFC did in the regular season?

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Think you are completely missing the point. The Cavalry won both seasons in a league that makes a fuss over not having playoffs. LAFC didn't win both conferences in a league that has always had them.

[narduch]

So basically you are choosing to make excuses for one because of a pre existing bias.  Got it

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

No. My point is that if a league is going to make a fuss over not having playoffs, they should have followed that through to its logical conclusion.

[narduch]

That would have been dumb though. You can't schedule a final and then cancel it. 

They did it perfectly in terms of having an end of season 'event'. Attendance was great in both cities and it created a bit of a buzz for the league.