Win or draw, and they're through to the next round.

Beyond that, it gets a little complicated.

Forge FC arrived in Guatemala City earlier this week to prepare for the second leg of their CONCACAF League qualifying round against Antigua GFC Thursday night (8 p.m.) after beating the Central American team 2-1 last Thursday at Tim Hortons Field.

The winner advances to the CONCACAF League's round of 16 against Honduran side Olimpia later this month.

David Choiniere's goal in stoppage time gave Hamilton the comeback win last week, after veteran attacker Edgar Pacheco, who has played internationally for Mexico, staked the visitors to an early lead, an all-important away goal. In a two-leg series, if the score is tied on aggregate, the result is decided by away goals. Should those also be tied (which would happen only if the home team wins this one 2-1) the game goes to a shootout to determine a winner.

So what Forge FC can't do is lose 1-0, or by a margin larger than one goal. Any other result — including something like a 3-2 loss — and they advance.

"They can search for a goal, and not have to chase it," Forge coach Bobby Smyrniotis told The Spectator from Guatemala earlier in the week. "All they need is a goal, if we don't score. For them it's important to have got an away goal but at the same time they have to score a goal in this game.

"We are always confident that we can score goals. We're not going to sit back and rest on our first results. We know that if we score another goal, it will put a lot of pressure on them. It will be a tactical matchup. If they open up, it can create a problem because we can counterattack. We like to control it but we can break out on a counter attack too."

Forge has a surprisingly deep cohort of threatening players up front, paced by Tristan Borges, but they lost a major offensive asset when Emery Welshman was finally recalled off loan by MLS side FC Cincinnati the day after the first Antigua game so he could be transferred to an Israeli team.

"He's a very good player, it's not easy to replace him, but we've got guys on the sidelines who maybe haven't played as much because of the success Welshman and Borges have had, so it's up to somebody there to step up," Smyrniotis says. "We also don't rule out eventually bringing in a player, but it has to make sense and look toward our team for next year too.

"It's good for Emery, and it's good for the league. We've won a CONCACAF game, Calgary beat out an MLS team (Vancouver Whitecaps) in the Canadian Championships, and a player who was with us for three months has been called up and transferred to a well-paying league. The more success we have, the more legitimacy comes to the league, the sense that we're going to be around for a long time."

While Hamilton will be down a first-class setup man and shooter, they'll be up a significant central defender for the Antigua rematch. They signed Kitchener native David Edgar, who at 32, becomes the eldest Forge player by four years. He has extensive experience in the English Premier League, including a stint at Newcastle under Kevin Keegan, played in the MLS and USL and has been capped 42 times by the Canadian senior team. As a national, Edgar has played under the hostile conditions that Central and South American venues always present to visiting teams, and should join captain Kyle Bekker as a steadying influence on the young Forge side.

The game will not be played at Antigua GFC's normal grounds, the intimate and raucous 9,000-seat Estadio Pensativo, because its lighting is not up to standards. It's been shifted an hour down the road into Guatemala City's Estadio Nacional Mateo Flores, which holds 22,000 but may not be sold out. That could slightly reduce the home-field advantage for the Green Bellies but it should still be a relatively hostile environment for the visitors.

"Their fans will still be very vibrant behind them, and loud," Smyrniotis says. 'We can talk about coming and playing in CONCACAF regions and some of the things, especially the national team, have faced. But to me, this is what you want for your team."

Smyrniotis and Co. got their first look at the national stadium Wednesday and he says the pitch is large, and in good shape, but with a little bit of bounce to the surface. It will be only the fifth time that Forge will have played together on a grass field rather than artificial turf.

Because there is already a game result, and because the teams are no longer totally unfamiliar with each other, this should be a different match than the first one, when there was a half-hour feeling-out process.

"These are two different kinds of teams," Smyrniotis says. You have us, a new team put together and we're still building an identity; and them, a team well on the way to being who they are they know what they want to play tactically and come out ready to do it.

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"For the most part, though, it looks pretty closely matched."

smilton@thespec.com

905-526-3268 | @miltonatthespec