Thursday night at Starlight Stadium, Cavalry FC recorded a memorable result in the first leg of their Concacaf Champions Cup tie with Liga MX giants Pumas UNAM, securing a 2-1 victory.

Evidently, it was a huge night for Cavalry, but it may have been an even bigger night for the Canadian Premier League and Canadian club soccer as a whole. The CPL project has not been without its challenges, and certainly, there is still a long way to go on many fronts. However, nights like the one we just experienced go a long way toward building the collective culture and history that make for a sustainable domestic league.

Until the end of last season, Cavalry had always been a little brother in the CPL, determined to show their worth but unable to beat their older brother, Forge, in a years-long game of one-on-one in the backyard. Then, finally, in last year’s playoffs, the breakthrough came, with the Cavs besting Forge not once but twice on their way to their first CPL title. Revenge at last.

I believe that without this breakthrough, Thursday night’s result wouldn’t have been possible. Through failures and setbacks, this group of Cavalry players has learned what it takes to produce results under pressure, and they picked up right where they left off to begin their 2025 Champions Cup campaign.

Sure, Pumas didn’t send all their best players to Vancouver Island, and you’d expect a much stronger Pumas side to play in the second leg in Mexico City. Yet, at this point, that’s secondary to what Cavalry was able to produce against a highly pressurized Pumas team—one that has been unsatisfied with their start to the Clausura campaign and is still looking for answers.

For Cavalry to go down a goal right before the halftime break and respond the way they did was truly impressive. When dual Canadian-Mexican national Santiago López opened the scoring in his first senior appearance for Pumas, it would have been easy for Cavalry to drop their heads and fade away. Instead, they showed the resilience of a team that has suffered before and has come to embrace those hardships rather than run from them.

As much as the match itself was memorable, so was the crowd. On a bitterly cold night in Langford, a mixed group of Cavalry, Pumas, and Pacific supporters created a vibrant atmosphere from kickoff to the final whistle. You never know exactly what you’re going to get in these neutral-site environments, but for me, there was a charm to Thursday night at Starlight that added to the experience far more than it detracted.

Ultimately, these experiences are important for CPL clubs, because the more they play on the continental stage, the more they’ll take that experience back to league play. As a result, all of the teams within the league will be forced to step up their game.

The challenge for the Canadian Premier League going forward is to keep all of their teams moving on that upward trajectory. While the likes of Forge and Cavalry have been ascending year after year, the rest of the league still has a long way to go.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Cavalry can do in the second leg down in Mexico City.

(Image Credit: CPL)