The third edition of the Canadian Premier League has kicked off on June 26. Over the following five months, elite Canadian soccer teams play regular-season games, competing for a spot in the Playoffs.
Four highest-ranked teams in the CPL table will get there but only one will be crowned the champion. Who is it going to be?
2021 Canadian Premier League Favorites
Forge FC is the only team that has won the Canadian Premier League so far – they did it in the inaugural 2019 season, as well as in 2020. Can they do it again?
Although the reigning champions haven’t started the new season very well, they surely do have the manpower to achieve their goals. The trouble is that there are a few other teams with exactly the same plans for the 2021 season, starting with Pacific FC.
This team started the new season in top gear, winning 6 of the first 10 matches. It’s a similar case when it comes to Cavalry, the team that finished at the top of the table after the regular season in the previous two years.
Then, there’s also HFX Wanderers who lost the last season’s Final to Forge FC. The start of the season wasn’t too great for this team, but the CPL history has thought us that you should never underestimate them.
Knowing all this, we can say that the list of favorites for winning the 2021 Canadian Premier League goes as follows:
- Forge FC
- Pacific FC
- Cavalry
- HFX Wanderers
- Valour
- York Utd
- Edmonton
- Atletico Ottawa
The season is still in its early stages at the moment of writing, meaning that anything can happen in the next few months. One thing is clear, though, soccer fans are in for a lot of excitement!
Canadian Premier League Format and Schedule 2021
There are eight teams competing in the regular season of the 2021 Canadian Premier League. Half of those will advance to the Playoffs. To get a Playoff berth, a team needs to finish among the top 4 in the CPL Rankings.
Each team has to play a total of 28 regular-season games, which started on June 26 and will end on November 6. Then, it’s time for the CPL Playoffs!
The 2021 Canadian Premier League Playoff format is going to be different from what we saw in the previous two years. Instead of going with a round-robin tournament – a Championship Group in which each team plays against every other – the 2021 CPL Playoff will be a knockout competition.
The team that finished the regular season at the summit of the table will get to play against the #4 seed in the semifinal. The other semifinal match will be the clash between #2 and #3 teams.
The winners of the semifinals will get to battle it out in the CPL Final, a single match that will decide the champion of the Canadian Premier League for 2021.
