CF Montreal tops reigning champion Whitecaps, advance to Canadian Championship final

Prince Owusu scored two first-half goals to help CF Montreal qualify for the Canadian Championship final, beating the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 on Wednesday and 3-2 on aggregate.

Montreal (5-14-6) will be participating in their first Canadian Championship final since 2023, knocking off the defending champions, as Vancouver's (14-6-4) run of consecutive titles ends with four.

"Before the game, I had a pretty short speech. I looked around and every player was ready for today. That was also my speech; I said, `We're ready, let's get it'," said Owusu. "We wanted it more today. We were ready to go over our limits, and the team who went over their limits won, it wasn't really about quality."

Throughout the last few years, many Montreal losses have followed a script. Their lack of final product was punished by the opposing team's pragmatism and ability to make fewer chances count.

This time around, in one of their most important home games in five years, they seemingly flipped the script on a high-flying Vancouver side. Over the course of two legs, Montreal managed to score three goals from just four shots on target and 36 per cent possession of the ball.

"It feels good to have that efficiency, despite not having as many opportunities as we're used to," said Montreal interim head coach Philippe Eullaffroy. "We could have been even more efficient though. I told (Owusu) that I was upset with him because I wanted him to score three."

With the game effectively a single-elimination tie after the first-leg draw at BC Place, neither team took many risks in the opening phase. As both teams settled into their game plans, Vancouver had the majority of the ball, but it was Montreal who was finding spaces in the final third against the run