Photo Credit – Canadian Premier League
Forge FC ML +175
In a match up of two of the leagues best to start the season, defending CPL champions Forge FC travel to Langford, British Columbia to take on Pacific FC.
Pacific have built off their strong 2023 season where they made it to the CPL playoff semi finals ultimately losing to Calvary in a tight 2-1 game. Pacific have started the season undefeated with 3 wins and 1 draw through 4 league games. The story for Pacific this season has been their strong defensive play, only conceding 1 goal across all competitions (0 goals conceded in league play) proving to be the backbone of their team. Emil Gazdov is the only keeper heading into match day 5 with more than 1 clean sheet recorded with 3 league clean sheets to start the season.
Defending CPL champions and the gold standard for the league, Forge FC have picked up right where they left off starting the season undefeated with 3 wins through 3 league games. Forge are known league wide as a team who can score in bunches, they are tied for the league lead in team goals with 7 goals through 3 games. This Forge team is coming off an extremely impressive performance in the Canadian Championship against an MLS side where they drew CF Montreal 1-1 in the first leg of their two leg fixture. Outside of any major injuries, Forge look poised to make another run at the CPL playoff title.
Pacific FC and Forge FC will lock horns on Saturday May 11th where the leagues best defence will take on the leagues best offence in a top of the table clash. Last season in 4 league games, Forge dominated the season series winning 3 of the 4 games outscoring Pacific 6 to 2 in those 4 meetings. Despite Pacific’s stout defence to start the season, I believe Forge’s offensive firepower will be too much for Pacific to overcome and for that reason I will be taking Forge ML as my CPL free play of the week at +175 (odds provided by Bet365).
I believe this will be an extremely close game with lots of quality on display from both squads. With the value we are getting on Forge combined with performances they’ve had recently which included drawing an MLS side in their most recent game, we can’t pass up on an opportunity to take Forge as underdogs.