Time for Valour FC to deliver

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This article was published 25/06/2021 (1566 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After back-to-back losing seasons, it’s time for Valour FC to finally deliver some results.

If you’ve been following Winnipeg’s professional soccer club since the beginning, you don’t need to be reminded what their inaugural season in 2019 looked like.

In short, they stunk.

Highly touted signings such as striker Stephen Hoyle and defenders Skylar Thomas and Jordan Murrell fell flat. Valour finished the year in a tie with HFX Wanderers FC for the lowest point total in the Canadian Premier League .

Their top four players from that dreadful campaign — attacking midfielder Marco Bustos, forwards Michael Petrasso and Tyler Attardo, and midfielder Louis Béland-Goyette — all packed their bags and left for greener pastures after the season, forcing head coach and general manager Rob Gale to start from scratch, which was probably a good thing.

The 2020 season only saw seven players return from the previous year as Gale put an emphasis on filling out his roster with more experience. He signed former MLS talent in midfielder Brett Levis and defender Andrew Jean-Baptiste and acquired promising prospects in defender Julian Dunn (Toronto FC) and James Pantemis (FC Montreal) on loan. Gale also turned heads by bringing in left-back Arnold Bouka-Moutou who spent three years playing in France’s Ligue 1 with Dijon and Angers.

It was evident that this group was more mature and had better leadership, but they didn’t have enough time to put it all together. The pandemic stripped away the preseason and forced the league to replace the season with a single-site tournament in Charlottetown, P.E.I. Perhaps if they had a full season to gel it would’ve been a different story, but they ended up going 2-2-3 and finished in sixth place.

There’ll be no excuses in 2021 as The Kickoff — the Winnipeg bubble — officially begins Saturday as all eight teams will play eight matches at IG Field over the coming weeks before returning to their markets for the remainder of the 28-game season, assuming it’s safe to do so. Valour’s first match is Sunday at 1 p.m. in a meeting with the two-time defending champs, Forge FC.

The Free Press chatted with Winnipeg Football Club president and CEO Wade Miller recently and asked him if this season is make or break for Gale.

“We’re focused on winning. There’s a good nucleous of players that have come back. There’s some great other players that we have and the expectation is to win. That’s the fundamental thing we’re hired to do in professional sports is win and our expectation at Valour is to win,” said Miller.

“I believe in evaluating things ongoing all the time. (But) I believe in the coaches we have and we will succeed. They’re paid to win and so are the players. It comes down to the guys on the field as well and building the right environment.”

If Valour is going to meet its winning expectations in 2021, here are three important things to keep an eye:

 

International signings need to deliver

On paper, Brazilian midfielder Rafael Galhardo is a spectacular signing. The 29-year-old brings 11 years of experience from Brazil’s top-flight professional league to Valour, but it’s hard to imagine he’ll be at his best anytime soon. He finally arrived in Winnipeg from Brazil and is currently quarantining, but it took him nearly a month to make it into town and he’s already had to quarantine twice in order to get here. His hectic travel journey, thanks to the pandemic, cost him all of training camp in a year where he really could’ve beneffited from it as he didn’t play professionally last season. Whether you’re Galhardo or Ronaldo, that’s a lot to overcome.

Arnold Bouka-Moutou is the only Valour player with a résumé that stacks up to Galhardo’s, but visa issues have prevented the defender from joining the club this season. Valour isn’t expecting him to arrive for a few more weeks and once he does make it, the mandatory quarantine will set him back even further. Panamanian defender Amir Soto knows that feeling as visa issues kept him out of the country last year and forbid him from suiting up for Valour at The Island Games. The 6-4 product of Panama’s first division is here this time, but he has some rust to knock off. He didn’t play professionally anywhere last year and Panama’s lockdown prevented him from training to his full capabilities.

Rodrigo Reyes, a 20-year-old central defender on loan from C.D. Guadalajara in Mexico, recently finished his quarantine and joined Valour on Friday, two days before the team opens the season.

The majority of Valour’s international pieces are facing an uphill battle in 2021.

 

Defence wins championships, but somebody’s gotta score

Valour scored eight goals from eight different players at The Island Games. While it’s great to have so many players capable of scoring, they need someone to be a consistent threat and they’re hoping that person will be Austin Ricci. The 25-year-old centre-forward generated a lot of chances in Charlottetown during his first season with Valour, but the former York United striker wasn’t one of the eight players to notch a goal. In fact, the only forward who did was Montreal native Masta Kacher who also re-signed for 2021.

One of Valour’s new forwards is Keven Alemán who scored once in seven games for FC Edmonton last year. Another newbie to keep an eye on is William Akio, a 22-year-old first-year pro who has the second-most points in University of Texas Rio Grande Valley history.

If Valour fails to improve this season, this group will likely be one of the main reasons for it.

 

New MLS loans have big shoes to fill

Gale hit two home runs with last season’s loans. Toronto FC loaned defender Julian Dunn to Valour for The Island Games and he ended up being arguably their best player. Dunn also made history by becoming the first Valour player to be nominated for a league award as he was a finalist for Best Canadian Under-21.

Goalie James Pantemis, on loan from FC Montreal, was also impressive as he finally gave Valour some stability between the pipes after Tyson Farago and Mathias Janssens failed to do so in 2019.

The downside to relying heavily on loans is you don’t get to keep those players forever as Dunn and Pantemis have returned to the MLS.

Gale has another pair of loans from the MLS, specifically FC Montreal, this year, but it’s highly unlikely they’ll have the same impact as the last two. Forward Sean Rea, an 18-year-old from Laval, Que., and 20-year-old goalie Jonathan Sirois, who hails from LaSalle, Que., will have their work cut out for them to match Dunn and Pantemis.

Rea made two appearances for Canada at the 2019 FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Brazil, but his experience is limited and he will likely come off the bench.

Sirois, who has spent year’s in Montreal’s academy and suited up for their under-23 club, will likely have a much bigger role as the No. 1 keeper job is wide open. He’s battling it out with 30-year-old Matt Silva who sat behind Pantemis for all seven matches last season. Silva has only appeared in one CPL match and that was in 2019 with York United.

Unless Sirois makes the most of his minutes and is a breakout star, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Valour revert back to the goalie struggles they had in Year 1.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31