I’m interested in who Forge is going to start at LB lining up against Musse. Parra has been suspended and missed the last three games, while Owolabi-Belewu did pretty well in the 1-2 playoff match. Based on the season it seems more likely to me Parra is going to start and they’ll try and get him upfield and force Musse to play more without the ball and tracking him on defence. I don’t think Parra is all that great defensively and he’s out of match rhythm and he’s someone that the Musse/Aird combo can hopefully expose.
AGR on Onesoccer has an article (
https://onesoccer.ca/a/5-key-tactica...24-canpl-final) highlighting the 5 key matchups and this is one of them. He surmises that Forge could move to a back 5 to offer more help on that side.
Something I learned from that article is Sofascore has player heatmaps for the season on there. Quite interesting (to me at least) looking at where players are getting involved, or differences between them. Look at the Cavalry fullbacks as an example; Kamdem and Aird (
https://www.sofascore.com/player/com...namentId=13470); you can see how much wider in defence Aird stays and Kamdem is more conservative and tucks into a LCB role a lot more. Aird is also getting in more crosses and getting on the ball closer to the opponent's box. I think it's cool to see a more statistical breakdown of something we've seen play out with our eyes.
Camargo is perhaps the most interesting one to me as it confirms how often he likes to drift wide (
https://www.sofascore.com/player/sergio-camargo/155863) Not a lot going on in the middle of the field 20 yards out which isn't surprising as it is an area of the field where he is going up against stronger, physical CBs.
Interesting to see data like that readily available for a league like the CPL, I'll be tracking it next year for sure.