Wednesday night in Montréal, the Vancouver Whitecaps will play the second leg of their Canadian Championship semifinal against CF Montréal at Stade Saputo.

After a 1-1 first leg at BC Place back on September 2, this match will decide who reaches the final. For the Whitecaps, a win would keep their hopes of a five-peat alive and set up a potential final against a CPL team. Otherwise, we’ll be crowning a new champion for the first time since 2021, when Montréal lifted the cup after beating TFC in the final.

While Vancouver is coming off the heels of a very disappointing loss to Austin FC on Sunday afternoon at home, the club formerly called the Impact has dropped three successive games in MLS play since the first leg and has scored only one goal in the process.

With that, the Québec team is now dead last in the East, 11 points away from the play-in places. It really looks as though this cup competition is the only carrot at the end of the stick for Montréal for the rest of this season.

Given this, I have to think we will see their absolute best effort midweek. We’ve seen that Montréal can be an uneven but dangerous team in one-off matches, so it would really benefit the Whitecaps if they were to find an early goal.

Converting on their chances has been a consistent struggle since the World Cup break for the reigning MLS Cup finalists, and many eyes will be on Thomas Müller’s health status after missing the match against Austin.

For me, though, I think Ralph Priso’s potential return is an underrated storyline. The Whitecaps defensive unit has not been the same without him in recent weeks, and Vancouver has been at their absolute best when they’ve had a central pairing of Priso and Blackmon at the heart of the back four.

Beyond Priso, there’s the ever-present Canadian-content element to this match. Unless something dramatic happens, Isaac Boehmer will be between the sticks for Vancouver in this second leg, hopefully not getting beat from the halfway line this time, while Jeevan Badwal, Sam Adekugbe and Rayan Elloumi are all relevant starting options to fit the three mandatory starters requirement.

You have to think that with the peril of defending a trophy on the line, Jesper Sørensen will go all out for this match. As much as Vancouver’s recent league form has been less than ideal, the quiet part for Vancouver is that the rest of the regular season is not very important, and so it makes a lot of sense to prioritize this one over a weekend trip to Utah.

And while the five-peat is obviously the headline, there is another significant prize on the line for Vancouver. Winning the Canadian Championship would also secure a place in the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup, giving the Whitecaps another opportunity to test themselves against the best clubs in the region.

There’s also the small matter of where the final would be played. The winner of this semifinal will host the Canadian Championship final on October 21, but should Vancouver advance, it currently looks as though that match would be played at Swangard Stadium rather than BC Place, with the latter unavailable that night. After hosting the final at BC Place in each of the past four seasons, a potential Voyageurs Cup final in Burnaby would certainly be a different experience.

At this point, I think it’s fair to say that a successful season in Vancouver is not defined by a domestic cup trophy. That said, with some mixed recent form, another shot at lifting the trophy certainly wouldn’t hurt, so let’s see what the Blue and White are able to produce in Montréal on Wednesday.