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August 25th Edition
CPL to Québec, MLS clubs making moves, Tajon hat-trick, and Tani to Spain
We’re back! Hope everyone had a great week.
Canadian MLS clubs were ACTIVE this past week during the North American transfer deadline. Montréal continued their roster turnover, Toronto FC added a few intriguing pieces, and the Whitecaps rounded out their squad.
Meanwhile, the final week of the European summer transfer window looks like it could see plenty of movement for Canadian ballers.
Plus, finalement CPL to Québec, Tani to Villarreal and plenty more ahead in this week’s edition of The Northern Pitch.
In this week's edition:
CPL
⚜️ CPL to Québec, for real this time
True North Foot
Finalement. Finally. The CPL feels complete. There has been a noticeable gap in the CPL landscape, no Québecois clubs. This past Tuesday, it was reported by numerous sources that a CPL club is coming to Québec..
Expected launch date: 2026. As reported by RDS’ Olivier Brett, a deal has been reached between the CPL and a team that will be creating the club. Tony Marinaro has elaborated that American businessman Matt Rizzetta and Montreal businessman Angelo Pasto, along with other local investors makeup the ownership group of the club. Matt Rizzetta will be the chairman.
The CS Saint-Laurent influence. The Ligue1 Quebec club that had an impressive CanChamps run in 2024 left an impression on the Canadian soccer landscape. Saint Lau’s former sporting director, Rocco Placentino, will be the club’s president. Nicolas Razzaghi, Saint-Laurent’s head coach, will be the head coach of the new CPL club. Fun fact, CS Saint-Laurent are 2025 Ligue1 QC champs.
Where will they play? The incoming club will play in Laval at Stade Boréale. Therefore, sharing the venue with NSL’s Roses de Montréal. Plans for a permanent venue are unconfirmed as Stade Boréale is technically a pop-up stadium like Wanderers Grounds. A permanent stadium near a metro line would be a big plus.
A potential club name has been revealed. Some people went digging through trademark databases and have come across an interesting name: Supra FC. Who registered the name? One of the members of the ownership group, Angelo Pasto. This does not confirm the name of the new club, but it is an exciting theory.
What does this mean for Québec football? More opportunities. Until now, players who couldn’t break into CF Montréal’s first team often had to leave for clubs in MLS, USL, or the CPL. With a Québec CPL team, more of that talent can stay home. Imagine players like David Choinière, Sam Salter, Thomas Meilleur-Giguère, Safwane Mlah, and Yann Toualy all playing together in Québec. This is big news for player development and the growth of the game in the province.
MLS
👏 Canadian MLS clubs making moves
Toronto FC
Transfer news is always exciting. We take one week off and all the news came flooding in. There have been some shocking departures and some exciting acquisitions across the MLS Canadian sides.
🌊 Vancouver Whitecaps. Off the top, Thomas Müller was a pivotal signing. But the Caps are looking to reinforce the squad for playoffs. They have signed three players and transferred one. Homegrown talent Liam Mackenzie has signed a pro contract. Belgian defender Joedrick Pupe from FCV Dender has been added to the squad. Finally, the Caps have added CB Sebastian Schonlau from Bundesliga side Hamburger SV. Müller now has a fellow German friend. The Whitecaps have transferred Bjørn Inge Utvik to Norwegian club Sarpsborg 08 FF.
🔴 Toronto FC. TFC have been very busy since signing Milhailovic. A lot of money has been exchanged and a lot of players moving about. We will focus on the biggest transfers from the last two weeks. Jose Cifuentes has been loaned to the Reds from Scottish giants Rangers. TFC have traded Matty Longstaff for MTL’s Jules-Anthony Vilsaint plus GAM. The young forward has already scored a goal in his first game for TFC. Lastly, Honduran Deybi Flores has been transferred to Saudi club Al-Najma SC.
🔵 CF Montreal. This has been a busy and dramatic year for the club. Things have gotten interesting with some major figures departing the club. As mentioned above, CFM received Matty Longstaff in exchange for Jules-Anthony Vilsaint plus GAM. MTL have added Bode Hidalgo from Real Salt Lake in exchange for cash, while Emil Gazdov has been loaned back to the CPL, but with Valour. First round draft pick, Michael Adedokun has been transferred to USL club Lexington SC. Joel Waterman has been transferred to the Chicago Fire in exchange for cash. The charismatic defensive leader departs CFM after 130 appearances. Caden Clark has been traded to DC United in exchange for cash. A popular figure at the club, he leaves after a season. Finally, CFM have signed Spanish attacking midfielder Ivan Jaime on loan from Porto as a DP. Jaime will remain in MTL until 2026 with an option to buy.
CanMNT
🧢 Tajon a hat-trick hero in Spain
Villarreal CF
It is pretty safe to say, Tajon Buchanan is back.
After a strong summer with the Canadian men’s national team, the Brampton winger made history this weekend and became the first Canadian to score a hat-trick in La Liga.
Tajon went meg mode on a defender before curling in a beauty to open his account for the season in the 16th minute. He added another in the 28th before completing his hat-trick in the 64th minute in a 5-0 dismantling of Girona.
For a player who spent most of last season recovering from injury, only to be cast aside by Inter Milan — before finishing the season on loan at Villarreal, this statement performance had to feel pretty dang good.
He is currently top of the La Liga Golden Boot race, and Villarreal are top of La Liga. Over Lamine, over Mbappe, over Lewandowski. Crazy hours (and only two games into the season, but we still gotta celebrate, ya know?)
CanMNT
🇪🇸 Tani Oluwaseyi to Spain?
OneSoccer
Tani time is about to go international.
Rumours this week, including from Tom Bogert, indicate that Villarreal are close to signing Canadian international Tani Oluwaseyi. The transfer fee is reported to be nearing $7.5 million CAD.
He would join fellow Canadian international Tajon Buchanan with the Yellow Submarines, making them a pretty must-watch team for all Canadian soccer fans in La Liga this season.
So far in 2025, the 25-year-old has 12 goals and 7 assists in 29 matches in all competitions. He has a pair of goals in 15 matches for Canada.
This would be a huge chance for the striker to take the next step in his career, and perhaps claim a starting striker role next to Jonathan David on the Canadian men’s national team.
But he’s gotta make sure it’s the right move at the right time, because playing time is huge right now in terms of breaking into a stacked national team striker position.
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Canucks Abroad
🌍 Canucks Abroad
B/R Football
🇮🇹 Jonathan David opens his Juventus account. Starting off with the good news this week, shall we? JD officially unlocked his first Serie A goal for the club, scoring the Bianconeri’s season-opener in a 2-0 win against Parma. A perfect poacher’s goal, JD’s main competition at striker, Dusan Vlahovic added the insurance marker after coming on for David.
👑 Jordyn Huitema goes back-to-back. Air Jordyn, now boarding in Houston. Sunday was an exceptional day for Canadian forwards, as Huitema followed Buchanan and David in finding the net. Huitema rose above her defender to power a strong header past the Dash in a 1-1 draw. That’s now two in two games for Jordyn. Soaring.
🩼 Alistair Johnston injured. Now the bad news. And uh, there was a lot of it to go around this week. It began midweek in UCL action when Alistair Johnston went down with a hamstring injury. AJ had to be stretchered off against Kairat Almaty. Now, Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers has confirmed that he’ll be out for 3 months.
🤕 Promise David… also injured. The injury gods were clearly not very happy. Still returning from a pre-season knock, PD came in off the bench in the 63rd minute. He didn’t make it to the end of the 0-0 draw against RAAL though, after taking a ball to the head. Post-match articles speculate it caused a mild concussion.
🇮🇹 Ismael Koné picked up a red card. CanMNT players are also gaining an unfortunate familiarity with red cards this season. Ismaël Koné got the nod for his Serie A debut with Sassuolo this week against Napoli. He performed well to start, being relatively involved in play… but a second yellow for a challenge in the 79th minute resulted in his marching orders in a 2-0 loss.
🇪🇸 Derek Cornelius to Spain? DC could finally be on the move. He was left on the bench in both of Marseille’s first two Ligue 1 games this season against Rennes and Paris FC. Now, according to Sacha Tavolieri, the centreback could be headed to Alavés, joining Canadian youth goalkeeper Grégoire Swiderski. Salary demands seem to be a sticking point, but l’OM are prepared to let Cornelius go for around 4 million euros.
🏴 Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty rumoured with a move to England. Jahkeele could become the latest Canuck Abroad. Burnley and Coventry have been linked with the the full-back. It has also been reported that Villarreal and Wolfsburg are also monitoring Marshall-Rutty. A reminder that any deal would also have to go through CF Montréal, as JMR is only on loan to Charlotte.
🇳🇿 Manjrekar James signs with Wellington Phoenix. The former Forge FC centre-back’s career is taking yet another turn. Having already stamped stints in Hungary, Denmark, Greece, Ukraine, Costa Rica and, of course, Canada, in his passport, Manjrekar is now off to New Zealand. The ‘Nix play across the Tasman Sea in Australia’s A-League, where they finished 11th out of 13 clubs last season.
Major League Soccer
⚽️ MLS News & Recaps
🔵 Is Montreal actually good now? A lot of players have left MTL this past year and it appears that the team has been distilled down to a talented young squad. CF MTL defeated Austin FC at Stade Saputo 3-2. A stand out performance for Hennadi Synchuk as he scored his first MLS goal. Olger Escobar is quickly becoming a fan favourite. The vibe is slowly coming back at Stade Saputo.
🌊 Thomas Muller scored his first MLS goal. The Whitecaps hosted St. Louis FC in Thomas Muller’s first start for Vancouver. This was a competitive game as both clubs went tit for tat. Only for the 2014 World Cup winner to convert a penalty to confirm the Cap’s full three points at home in stoppage time. The game ended 3-2 for the Whitecaps. Also, Muller scored the penalty against former Borussia Dortmund keeper Roman Burki.
🔴 TFC held top a draw in the ATL. Toronto travelled south to Georgia to play against Atlanta United. The game was held to a nil-nil draw as both sides were unable to unlock the other in the final third. However, TFC’s midfield and defence had a decent performance.
☀️ Mathieu Choinière’s first goal for LAFC. Assisted by Korean GOAT Son Heung-Min. This clip went viral and everyone and their mothers have watched it. However, we had to mention this as this is a major moment for the CanMNT midfielder and for the league to witness the beginning of the Sonny era.
📺 Insight into the Luca Saputo era at CF Montreal. The club released this mini-doc on the final days of the transfer market. It’s pretty good and a surprising insight on the club’s inner working. Was this intended to make Luca Saputo look good or a sincere attempt at transparency with the fan base? So far, it seems like an earnest attempt to steer the ship back on course. Time will tell.
🇰🇷 Also, Son scored his first goal. A free-kick goal against Dallas and the internet went bananas.
This week’s MLS fixtures:
Saturday, August 30
Toronto FC vs. CF Montréal (7:30PM ET @ BMO Field)
Canadian Premier League
🍁 CPL News & Recaps
⚓️ Valour, meet Tiago Coimbra. This week in the CanPL started (and ended) with a goalfest for the home team. Valour started well, backed by the new safe hands of Emil Gazdov. But, the dam broke soon before long, as Tiago Coimbra scored three goals to bag the first hat-trick in Halifax Wanderers history. Diogo Ressurreição pulled one back, but that was all she wrote in a 4-1 finish.
⚒️ Forge clinch a post-season berth. Back down the other end of the country, Forge had to fight through a slog to get their three points with Vancouver FC matching them step for step. A single lapse gave Mo Babouli an unmarked header for the only goal in a 1-0 win. With results in North York going their way on Sunday (more on that in a bit), they became the first team this season to secure their play-offs spot.
🦖 A tale of two halves in Ottawa. It wasn’t quite La Remontada for Ottawa this week, but a comeback of sorts nonetheless. Cavalry started the brighter of the two sides at TD Place, thanks greatly to Ali Musse’s first-half brace. But, Cavalry would ease off the gas in the second half, allowing a scrappy Sam Salter goal and a deflected David Rodríguez rebound for a 2-2 draw.
👑 The Shaan Hundal show, now playing at YLS. That’s right, it was a bit of a different look for York United this week after Julian Altobelli picked up a knock. That paved the way for Shaan Hundal to, well, the box score says it all. The Brampton native popped up for four goals, tying the CPL record set by Sam Salter earlier this year. Leonel López and Alejandro Díaz also scored as York downed Pacific in a 5-1 win.
This week’s CPL fixtures:
Saturday, August 30
Cavalry FC vs. Forge FC (2PM MT @ ATCO Field)
Atlético Ottawa vs. Vancouver FC (7PM ET @ TD Place)
Sunday, August 31
Valour FC vs. Pacific FC (2PM CT @ Princess Auto Stadium)
Monday, September 1
Halifax Wanderers vs. York United (4PM AT @ Wanderers Grounds)
Northern Super League
🌌 NSL News & Recaps
Northern Super League
🌹 Montréal Roses back in the running. There were certainly questions around Montréal this week, after bombshell news that the club’s leading goalscorer Latifah Abdu would be parting ways with the Roses in the middle of a three-game winless streak. That uncertainty all but washed away by full-time on Saturday though, as new arrival Kang Chae-rim marked a debut brace to give the Roses a 2-0 win over Calgary.
🌄 Vancouver keep on rising. Off the back of a big win at the CNE against AFC Toronto last week, the vibes seem to be much better for the Rise. Now, the broadcast feed didn’t seem to feel the same way (after it cut out), but a back-and-forth end saw the Vancouver Rise just about outpace the Ottawa Rapid in a 3-2 win. With a consolation goal, DB Pridham also became the first player in the NSL to hit 15 goals this season. Talk about striking gold.
This week’s NSL fixtures:
Thursday, August 28
Ottawa Rapid vs. Halifax Tides (7PM ET @ TD Place)
Saturday, August 30
AFC Toronto vs. Calgary Wild (2PM ET @ York Lions Stadium)
Vancouver Rise vs. Montréal Roses (7PM PT @ Swangard Stadium)