'Anything's possible': Behind Vancouver FC's incredible run to the CanChamp final
Callum Irving bent over, balled his fists and let out a thunderous scream of joy into the Ottawa night.
As he straightened up again, teammate Matteo Campagna leapt into the Vancouver FC goalkeeper's arms. The rest of the Eagles' backline came sprinting over, as they embraced in front of a stunned TD Place crowd.
For the past 90-plus minutes, Vancouver FC had thwarted a relentless Atlético Ottawa attack in the second leg of their semi-final in the TELUS Canadian Championship. Now, at last, Irving could release all of the pent-up adrenaline as the realization washed over him that it was mission accomplished. Vancouver FC were in the Canadian Championship final.
Despite sitting at the bottom of the Canadian Premier League table this season, on that September 18 day, they became the first team in league history to advance to the CanChamp final in a full tournament.
Irving has been in goal for all but one of Vancouver FC's 88 matches as a club. The majority of them haven't gone his side's way. Just 13 days prior, Vancouver FC had been eliminated from playoff contention in the league for a third consecutive season. So for the goalkeeper, and the club, it was a tremendously special moment.
"I think the first two years have been really challenging, so now just three years down the road to get to this point where we're in a final, we're making history as a CPL club by doing that," Irving told CanPL.ca. "I think it's just huge for everybody that's put a lot of time and effort into trying to make this thing successful."
Now, on Wednesday (7 p.m. PT / 10 p.m. ET on OneSoccer and TSN), Vancouver FC face by far their biggest challenge yet in the 2025 final. For the first time in club history, they face local rivals Vancouver Whitecaps, winners of the past three Canadian Championships and Concacaf Champions Cup finalists earlier this year.
Prior to 2025, Vancouver FC had never advanced in the Canadian Championship, nor had they scored a goal. But they sit just 90 minutes away from history after a run to the final equal parts improbable and incredible.
It is fitting, perhaps, that Vancouver FC's journey in this year's competition began with another all-B.C. match. On May 7, at Starlight Stadium in Langford, Vancouver FC met Salish Sea Derby rivals Pacific FC in the single-elimination preliminary round.
It took Vancouver FC just 33 minutes on that night to make history, as Terran Campbell was brought down in the box and Alejandro Díaz stepped up to the spot to score the club's first-ever Canadian Championship goal. Díaz, as fate would have it, has since transferred across the Salish Sea to Pacific. Early in the second half, however, the Tridents responded with a clever free kick from Aly Ndom that found a gap in the wall and nestled into the bottom corner.
With neither side able to solve the other for the remaining 40 minutes, it was off to the penalty spot to decide who advanced. In the first round of shooters, Irving denied former teammate Marco Bustos, before doing the same to Emmanuel Montejano. Vancouver's David Norman Jr. stepped up in the fifth and sent Pacific's Max Anchor the wrong way to send the Eagles soaring to the quarter-finals. "That was a huge start, a derby win, everything combined, it was just kind of a great beginning for us," says Irving.
In the two-legged quarter-finals, however, Vancouver faced a monumental challenge, Cavalry FC. The Calgary club are the defending CPL champions, had eliminated Vancouver from last year's Canadian Championship and were a club that the Eagles had never before defeated in club history.
In the first leg at their home grounds at Willoughby Community Park, Vancouver took the lead in the 41st minute, as Norman Jr. bundled the ball over the line after Cavalry failed to clear a Vasco Fry corner kick. But in the 84th, Tobias Warschewski weaved his way through the Vancouver box and tied the match, sending the series back to Calgary tied 1-1.
Two months later, on July 8, the sides met again in the second leg, this time at Calgary's ATCO Field. Again, Vancouver took an early lead as Nicolás Mezquida smashed home a penalty in the 23rd minute. The Eagles held that lead into the half. But in the 66th minute, Cavalry responded with a goal that went somewhat viral online for its absurdity. After a tangle of bodies in the box during a corner kick, Vancouver defender Aidan O'Connor went down injured in the box. As the ball moved to the top of the box, Cavalry full-back Mihail Gherasimencov unleashed a strike that hit O'Connor on the ground, and deflected past Irving. It was the kind of goal that could have easily deflated Vancouver's
From the spot, Vancouver were again given an early advantage when Warschewski stepped up and sent Cavalry's first kick wide, but Vancouver's Thomas Powell hit the post in the fifth round. That brought about an extra round of shooters. Vancouver's Juan Batista stepped up and sent his penalty into the top corner, putting the pressure squarely on the shoulders of Cavalry's Maël Henry. As the former Eagle stepped up to the spot, Irving dove to his right, denying the young attacker and booking a spot in the semi-final for Vancouver FC.
"There's almost no better feeling as a goalkeeper when you make that [save] and you know that it's over and you can go celebrate with the guys," says Irving.
It was in that moment that many on the Eagles began to believe that they were capable of doing something special this year.
"We kind of realized, like, 'wow, there's only how many games left?,' and we could really do it," says Vancouver FC defender Matteo Campagna. "That's when we shifted our minds to what we can actually achieve."
After that Cavalry match, Vancouver's attacker Thierno Bah remembers the comments section on the team's socials being flooded with fans thinking that the Eagles were about to face the Whitecaps, not knowing that matchups were redrawn after that stage, "everybody was so pumped for no reason," he laughed. Instead, they drew another CPL opponent, Atlético Ottawa.
But before they even stepped onto the pitch against the capital club came another twist in their tale. On July 23, with the team continuing to struggle in the league, head coach Afshin Ghotbi departed the club, replaced by interim head coach Martin Nash.
"We had gotten to the semi-finals with Afshin, and so I think there's definitely a part of us that felt a duty to try to carry on that run and make him proud of what we could accomplish," says Irving.
It's safe to say Ghotbi would be immensely proud of Vancouver's performance in August 13's first leg of the semi-final. The two sides traded goals through the first hour, with Bah setting up a well-placed strike for Michel Cavalcante to open the scoring for the Eagles, before Ottawa's Sam Salter replied with a guided header in the 58th minute. But ten minutes after they'd equalized, an untidy touch at the back from Noah Abatneh was intercepted by Vancouver's Hugo Mbongue, who streaked in on goal and gave the Eagles an unlikely lead.
Then, in the first minute of second-half stoppage time, Bah received the ball in midfield. His first instinct was just to make sure he didn't lose it. Earlier in the match, he had felt responsible after a what he called a "stupid move" he tried had led to Salter's goal. But then he saw Mezquida making a run in behind the Ottawa backline and threaded a ball through the lines.
"In the moment I said, look it's do or die, I can make this play, I know I'm capable of it, so I just went for it," said Bah. "I think it went through one of the player's legs, and then onto Mezquida in a nice area. I've set him up I think twice in that same area, and he's given me the same result."
That result was a crucial insurance goal to give Vancouver FC a 3-1 victory on that night -- and a goal which ultimately proved to be the difference in the tie.
Even with that two-goal cushion heading into the second leg, Vancouver FC faced plenty of skepticism. More than a month since the first leg Atlético Ottawa, scoring at a CPL record pace all season, had time to lick their wounds and felt confident they could overturn the deficit. When they took a 1-0 lead just before half-time, it felt like they had all the momentum to do just that.
But the Eagles stood tall. Spend most of the half deep in their own territory, they thwarted chance after chance, with each, tackle, block, or headed clearance bringing passionate celebration, and moving them closer to their goal. In the end, time ran out on Atlético Ottawa, and Vancouver held on for a 3-2 aggregate victory.
"I think you saw that togetherness, that focus throughout the game, especially in that second half," says Irving. "And for me, as a keeper standing behind it, it was a beautiful thing to watch."
After the match, Bah and teammate Kunle Dada-Luke trudged through the water-soaked floors of the away dressing room at TD Place, courtesy of a water shower they had given head coach Martin Nash, in search of the aux cord. When they found it, Drake's anthem "Started from the Bottom" echoed through the room as they and their teammates let loose.
"I don't think anybody ever believed in us that we were going to make it this far, let alone be the first CPL team to ever make it this far," said Bah. "So, it's just a song that was a must for us, and it meant so much in the moment."
Started from the bottom, and now they're here, at BC Place, for the Canadian Championship final. Facing a Whitecaps team that few give them a chance against, with a roster full of Canadian internationals and headed by World Cup winner Thomas Müller.
But it is the matchup that Vancouver FC wanted all along. A local derby, and a chance to earn respect both provincially and nationally. For eight players on the Eagles' roster, including Irving, Bah and Campagna and even head coach Martin Nash, they are former members of the Whitecaps organization -- adding even more meaning to Wednesday's match.
The 21-year-old Campagna was part of the Whitecaps' first team when they won the first two of their three back-to-back-to-back Voyageurs Cups. He knows what it takes to lift the trophy, and wants that feeling again. He knows his former side will be heavily favoured, but every challenge that Vancouver FC have faced, and overcome, on their road to the final gives him belief that they have every chance to pull off something special again on Wednesday.
"We've been underdogs the whole time," says Campagna. "I think people looked at us and underestimated what we can do. And that's kind of how cup tournaments go. You go against MLS teams and people say, 'oh yeah, they're going to win because they're an MLS team'. But no, I think the belief is there, like 90 minutes, I think anything's possible."
That underdog role, says Bah, fits perfectly into Vancouver FC's identity. Going into the final, the spotlight is on the Whitecaps in the midst of their incredible season and star-studded squad.
"Everybody knows the Vancouver Whitecaps," he says. "But I can tell you, for sure, [on Wednesday] they'll know VFC."
