Wanderers score late to draw with Valour

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This article was published 21/09/2024 (728 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Valour FC was on its way to earning the most impactful victory in franchise history Saturday afternoon.

A goal from Shaun Hundal in the 76th minute that broke a scoreless contest looked like it would prevail as the deciding marker in a critical match against another playoff hopeful, leaving Valour to take a gigantic leap toward qualifying for the Canadian Premier League playoffs for the first time.

Instead, it was a timely header from HFX Wanderers’ forward Zach Fernandez on a second chance following a corner kick in the 89th minute that left Winnipeg’s pro soccer club wondering what could have been as it was forced to settle for a 1-1 draw — its fourth tie in a row — at Princess Auto Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

“It’s tough to capture perspective immediately after the game,” said goalkeeper Jonathan Viscosi, who had another great performance with eight saves. “I don’t really have much to contextualize about it, but just based off the emotions of it, it’s definitely disappointing.

“Being that close, we’ve made a lot of progress as a team. We’ve been learning very quickly, and it’s just another harsh lesson for us to learn.”

This one will certainly sting for the Winnipeg side, which improved to 6-6-12 with just four matches remaining in the regular-season schedule, but a single point for the club’s effort isn’t all bad.

Though Valour is last in the CPL table with 24 points, the result improved its standing in the tight race for the playoffs. At the time of writing, Valour is just three points behind Pacific for the fifth and final seed, while battling Vancouver and Halifax, which are just one and two points out, respectively.

Vancouver FC visited No. 1 Forge FC on Saturday, a match that was still in progress at the time of writing. Pacific FC also hosts Atlético Ottawa on Sunday in another match that could shake up the table.

“I’ll see if it’s two points lost or a point gained at the end of this weekend,” said Valour head coach Phillip Dos Santos, who felt his club did enough to win on Saturday.

“I think that we conceded at a time where we were a bit naive, we allowed the game to open up a little bit too much and then we don’t deal with the corner kick the right way. At the end of the day, we have to look at all parts of the game, and I think that when you look at the full game and knowing that it would always be a game that would be playing with margins, we were the team that should’ve got all three points.”

For the Wanderers, it’s the second consecutive match in which the club scratched out a draw in the final moments to keep their playoff hopes alive. For Valour, it was a match marked by a series of close calls.

A physical first half that included a combined five yellow cards between the two sides ended without a score but was packed with encouraging moments offensively for the hosts.

The first big chance came on a corner from Themi Antonoglou in the 25th minute when Gianfranco Facchiner sent a header narrowly wide of goal.

Then came Hundal on an odd-man rush in the 32nd minute. Screaming up the left side, the midfielder sent a rolling shot to the far side of the goal that beat keeper Aiden Rushenas but not the post.

The hosts capped the frame with another dangerous chance on a corner in the 42nd minute, this time off a header from Tass Mourdoukoutas, whose challenge was deflected away at the last second by a Wanderers defender.

Close calls, indeed. Dos Santos said his club entered the locker room both encouraged by its performance and frustrated by the outcome.

“We know these are dangerous games because we understand the quality that the opposition also has in front,” said Dos Santos. “We know it’s margins and we know there’s always a chance that they could find the break. This is how tight these games are and will be until the end so when you have the chance to close them and capitalize and get the goal, you need to do it, and I feel that we did in this game.”

Uninterested in settling for the draw and a single point, both sides increased the urgency out of the break. A back-and-forth sequence began seconds after the opening kick as Wanderers forward Massimo Ferrin’s open look from in tight was heroically saved by the toe of Viscosi’s left boot.

Trying to present the opposition with a different look, Dos Santos called off Jordan Swibel and turned to forward Abdul Binate in the 61st minute. It proved to be a brilliant tactic by Valour’s bench boss, culminating with an excellent hustle play by Binate that prevented Halifax from exiting its own end led to Hundal’s tie-breaking marker.

Hundal, who finished a spectacular cross-crease ball from Loïc Kwemi, continued a dazzling stretch of play that’s now included four goals in his last five appearances. He is without a doubt, the hottest boot in the CPL.

“We felt that we needed to present different problems with the opposition,” Dos Santos said of Binate. “We knew that it would also bring a different problem to the right side of Halifax with Abdul being a bit more vertical, a bit more of a player with a physical prowess that would bring something different to the game. So, that was the thought process and it paid off.”

Valour has no time to dwell on the heartbreaking result. The club will host Pacific FC at Princess Auto Stadium on Monday, Sept. 30 (7 p.m.).

Three of its four remaining matches are at home.

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

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Joshua Frey-Sam
Reporter

Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He reports primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports. Read more about Josh.

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