He Atletico Ottawafranchise Atlético de Madridwas proclaimed this Sunday champion of the professional league of Canadathe Canadian Premier League (CPL), by winning 2-1 in extra time against Cavalry FC of Calgary, in the middle of heavy snow.
The final was played before some 13,000 spectators at the TD Place stadium in Ottawa under a snowfall that made visibility difficult and forced the match to be stopped periodically to remove the snow from the lines of the field of play.
The first to score was the Cavalry FC defender Fraser Aird penalty in the 33rd minute. After the goal, some Atlético Ottawa fans threw snowballs at the Cavalry FC players.
Just six minutes later, the midfielder David Rodriguez of Atlético Ottawa, tied with a spectacular bicycle kick goal that entered the left corner of the Cavalry FC goal.
At 16 minutes into extra time, which was played after the snow plows had cleared the field, Rodriguez He scored again with a Vaseline before the rival goalkeeper came out.
It is the first time that the Atletico Ottawa wins the CPL championship, a league that started in 2019 and currently has eight teams throughout the country.
In 2022, the capital team reached the final but was defeated by Forge FC 2-0.
The match was attended by Atlético de Madrid’s technical secretary, Severiano García, as well as the Spanish ambassador to Canada, Alfredo Martínez Serrano, and the mayor of Ottawa, Mark Sutcliffe, among other personalities.
Captain Zapater entered extra time
After the match, the captain of the Atletico Ottawathe Spanish veteran Alberto Zapater40, was in charge of collecting the North Star Cup, as the trophy awarded to the winner of the championship is known.
The final against Cavalry FC It was the last game of Zapaterwho entered during extra time.
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Alberto Zapaterborn in Ejea de los Caballeros in 1985, began his professional career with the Royal Zaragoza in the 2004-2005 season. In the 2009-2010 season he was transferred to the Italian Genoa and from there he moved to Sporting Lisbon and Lokomotiv Moscow where he remained until 2015, before returning to the Royal Zaragoza in 2016.
On May 18, 2023, he left the Aragonese team, after playing 422 games with the Zaragoza shirt, to join what ended up being his last club, the Canadian team Atletico Ottawa.
In 2020, the Atlético de Madrid He acquired one of the eight CPL franchises and founded Atlético Ottawa, the only team in the Canadian professional league that has the direct support of one of the great European clubs.
