Valour FC remain optimistic as playoff hopes fade

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This article was published 25/07/2023 (1123 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s been nothing but disappointment from Valour FC since the Canadian Premier League opened play in 2019.

Winnipeg’s professional soccer club has never made the post-season and all signs point to that streak continuing this year as they’re currently in seventh place in the eight-team circuit with a 3-7-6 record for 16 points with 12 games remaining.

Outside of expansion side Vancouver FC, Valour is the only CPL franchise that has never finished a season at the top half of the table.

The HFX Wanderers currently occupy the fifth and final playoff spot with 22 points (5-7-4).

“You can’t sit down and wallow about it. You can’t cry over spilt milk. You just have to keep on thinking about the fact that when you look at it, we’re six points out of a playoff spot,” forward Anthony Novak said after Tuesday’s training session at IG Field.

“There’s teams in this league and teams in other leagues that have come back from deficits that are much larger than six points. It seems daunting to some people and maybe some fans and whatnot, but they have to know that as players, it’s not daunting for us.”

Scoring goals has been a daunting task for Valour as they have the fewest in the league with 13 in 16 games.

Forward Tyler Attardo — a 21-year-old local product who scored six goals for his hometown club in their inaugural season before taking his talents overseas for a few years— trained with Valour last week but wasn’t offered a contract. He’s currently playing in USL League Two with FC Manitoba.

“I think we’ve created a lot (of chances), and as a coach, when you don’t create, you worry more,” said head coach and general manager Philip Dos Santos.

Chances are what Valour supporters have been hearing about for nearly five years now. Year after year, it’s seemingly the same story: coming close, but having nothing to show for it.

After two and a half lacklustre seasons, Valour sacked Rob Gale and replaced him with Dos Santos, a former Vancouver Whitecaps assistant, in September of 2021. Dos Santos has brought some much needed professionalism to the organization, but the team has gone 16-17-22 during his reign. Valour was 18-8-30 under Gale.

Dos Santos wouldn’t comment on whether or not he’s under contract for 2024.

“Am I concerned about my job? Look, for me, it’s a question that as a professional, as a pro, you always want to have results in order to see growth in not only the team, but also your career, right? I’m not alone in this,” said Dos Santos.

“I can only control what I bring here every day and that’s what I think of. I don’t think about what tomorrow’s going to look like, it would drive you crazy.”

Valour has played at a high level defensively as they’re tied with Pacific FC for the fewest goals allowed with 17 — goalkeeper Rayane Yesli has played a key part in that with a league-high five clean sheets — but when you’re not finishing on offence, you’re not going to pick up three points. After starting the season with a 2-0 win over York United FC, Valour followed it up by going 0-6-2 in their next eight.

Valour is winless in July with a draw and three losses in their last four games.

Their next match is Saturday afternoon at IG Field against Pacific. They’ll try to right the ship without their captain Andrew Jean-Baptiste as the defender left Sunday’s 2-1 home loss to York in the 38th minute with a hamstring injury and is expected to miss some time.

They’ve scored two goals just three times in 2023. Yesli admits the lack of offence has been frustrating at times, but he still has faith in the group in front of him.

“Honestly, I feel like the boys are still really confident in their capacities. It’s not like we’re playing games and we’re getting fully dominated,” said Yesli.

“I can think of maybe two or three games during the year where we’ve really struggled, but for the rest of them, we’ve been on the ball more and we have better scoring opportunities. There’s positives, the ball just hasn’t been going into the back of the net.”

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Novak, a 29-year-old from Pickering, Ont., knows what it takes to win in this league as he won back-to-back CPL titles in 2019-2020 with Forge FC. He’s spent the past two seasons with Cavalry FC, who currently lead the standings at 7-6-3.

“I don’t think there’s much difference (between Valour and the elite teams) to be honest with you. The structure here, everything we have in place, all the tools we have, everything from the head coach to the chaplain, you have everything you could ever ask for here,” said Novak.

“I think it’s just about going out and doing exactly what needs to be done on game day. I think keeping the mentality high when times are tough is something you need to do.”

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31

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.