Valour FC tryout reveals fresh talent

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This article was published 28/02/2020 (2363 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You didn’t have to be a soccer expert to tell which player stood out at Valour FC’s open trial last year.

Tyler Attardo, who was a 17-year-old River East Collegiate student at the time, showed off his scoring touch as he found the back of the net three times in the final scrimmage.

As long as you knew the difference between a corner kick and a kick to the head, you could tell Attardo was the best of the bunch. Valour ended up signing him and Attardo rewarded his hometown team with six goals in the inaugural Canadian Premier League season. Attardo signed a professional deal with a Chilean club last week.

But at this week’s trial inside the Winnipeg Soccer Federation South building, it wasn’t so easy. When things kicked off Wednesday morning, there were 120 Valour hopefuls. By the time they got to last scrimmage on Thursday afternoon, the Valour coaching staff had it narrowed down to fewer than 30 players. The 90-minute game ended 1-0 with the lone goal coming from Calgary native Tofa Fakunle, an attacking midfielder who played for Cavalry FC last season, on a free kick.

Unlike last year, there was no breakout star.

“Yeah, I think that’s fair to say,” admitted Valour head coach and general manager Rob Gale. “There were a couple of real good finds. A couple midfielders, a central defender as well that have shown the talent. Tofa, who has been in the CPL, got the goal off the free kick there. But yeah, not necessarily one player jumping out and catching the headlines, per se.”

Even with that being the case, Valour still found five players they’re interested in. The final five are Fakunle, midfielders Jibril Yimar, Jeandy Mavinga, Ignazio Muccilli, and defender Sam Gardner. They’ve all been offered to come back next week to an invite-only tryout that will feature 12 other players with U Sports, League1 Ontario or CPL experience. There will be roughly 17 players battling it out for Valour’s final five roster spots.

“This is what it’s about,” said Fakunle, 25, who made two appearances for Cavalry in 2019.

“We’re all trying to be professional footballers. For myself, I want to build my career and get into a club that represents how I want to play and who I am as a person as well. It’s fun and exciting.”

The biggest surprise of the bunch is Yimar, who played for Brandon University at the Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference (MCAC) level last year. The MCAC is a step below U Sports.

“This kid moved here from Kenya six years ago. Nobody knew about him. He came out of the woodwork,” Gale said.

Mavinga didn’t come out of nowhere, but he did come from very far away. The younger brother of Toronto FC left back Chris Mavinga made the trip to Winnipeg from France. The 26-year-old last played for FC Ordino in Andorra.

“He traveled the furthest out of anyone,” Gale said.

Muccilli, a 22-year-old Woodbridge, Ont., native, played at Jacksonville University. Despite coming off of an injury, the club wants to get a better look at Muccilli, who also has experience playing in Europe.

“He hasn’t played a game in months. He may need some time to get fit and get ready,” said Gale, unsure if Muccilli will stick around for next week’s tryout.

“He may be one we assess later on in the year, maybe in the summer.”

Gale also isn’t sure if Gardner will be there as it might not be in the defender’s best interests. Gardner, a 22-year-old from Toronto, would likely have a tough time cracking Valour’s lineup as the Winnipeg club signed several veteran defenders this off-season, including Amir Soto and Andrew Jean-Baptiste.

One of the biggest takeaways from the tryout was the opportunity it provided for local talent. A trio of 16-year-old high school players from Winnipeg made it to the final scrimmage Thursday: Glenlawn’s AJ Calado, Vincent Massey’s Owen Jowett and Oak Park’s Lachlan Lindsay.

“It’s invaluable for these lads. What happens is you can only play to the level of your competition or your teammates,” Gale said.

“One of the things as a smaller province such as ourselves, the local players will play to the level of the opposition and then you start getting into bad habits. You take extra touches on the ball. It’s OK, it’s part of their development and their creativity and that, but you’ll get found out when the game becomes faster and more physical. The better players are the ones who make better decisions more often and faster than anyone else. It’s important for them to see that.”

And that’s exactly what they saw. The two-day trial featured players from all over the world, including talent from Chile, Argentina and Portugal.

“Day 1 was a big surprise. You go to turn (with the ball) and you don’t have any time,” said Lindsay, an attacking midfielder. “You just get hit. You’ve got to be able to play faster and shield the ball when you’re getting pressed because they’re bigger, stronger, faster. You got to outsmart them, I guess.”

Lindsay, who is aiming to play professionally one day, considered the trial to be a valuable learning experience.

“Just to see where the (professional) level is at compared to Winnipeg by itself,” Lindsay said. “All of these men are from other provinces around the country, some of them are from different countries. It’s obviously cool to see they want to get a contract here. We’re all playing for the same thing.”

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While the high school kids didn’t crack the top five, Valour will take another look at them in the future.

“We will bring them in probably after pre-season is underway when we’re in the thick of it,” Gale said. “We’ll bring them in as three local boys and see how they do.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen3

Taylor Allen
Reporter

Taylor Allen is a sports reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. Taylor was the Vince Leah intern in the Free Press newsroom twice while earning his joint communications degree/diploma at the University of Winnipeg and Red River College Polytechnic. He signed on full-time in 2019 and mainly covers the Blue Bombers, curling, and basketball. Read more about Taylor.

Every piece of reporting Taylor produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.