Eyeing a winning rebound

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This article was published 14/06/2019 (2620 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Valour FC and Forge FC didn’t get the results they were looking for in the Canadian Championship.

Both clubs had their runs in the 13-team tournament cut short this week, but there’s no time to sit around and sulk. Both soccer teams need to refocus on the Canadian Premier League (CPL) season when they meet today in Hamilton at Tim Hortons Field at 4 p.m.

Valour is looking to rebound from two disappointing matches against HFX Wanderers FC in the second qualifying round of the Canadian Championship. The Winnipeg club struggled to find the back of the net, which has been the theme of their inaugural season, and the Wanderers advanced to the third round to earn a date with the United Soccer League’s Ottawa Fury after winning 4-1 on aggregate.

Forge FC failed to get by Cavalry FC — who are 5-0-0 in CPL play. Cavalry won their series 3-2 on aggregate and they’ll battle Major League Soccer’s Vancouver Whitecaps in the third round.

For Valour, 3-3-0 in CPL action, not having much time to focus on their last game might be a blessing in disguise. With only six goals in eight games between league and cup competition, a win over Forge — the second-place team in the CPL at 4-2-1 — might be exactly what Valour needs to regain their confidence. For that to happen, someone is going to have to step up, especially with star midfielder Michael Petrasso out of the lineup with a groin injury. Valour doesn’t have a single player with more than one goal this season.

“Yeah, absolutely. That’s the beauty of it,” Valour head coach and general manager Rob Gale said on Thursday on the quick turnaround between games. “That’s why I said ‘You got an opportunity here, lads. You want to take the opportunity or not?’ And the players who come in and step up, and this is about being professional footballers, I asked them today how many feel they’ve actually earned a starting spot. And we’re struggling to get past six or seven from front to back, so we’ve got to learn these lessons quickly about what it means to be a professional footballer because we don’t want to disappoint our fans. You can’t be good for 60 or 70 minutes from 18-yard box to 18-yard box. That’s not good enough at this level of play and that’s what they gotta get used to now.”

Valour has no problem getting the ball into enemy territory; the problem is what they do with it when they get there.

They’re indecisive with the ball, or make one pass too many, which ultimately ends the scoring threat. English-born forward Stephen Hoyle, a former Golden Boot winner in the ISPS Handa Premiership in New Zealand, was expected to be one of Valour’s top scorers this season. But outside of scoring the first goal in franchise history in Valour’s season-opener on May 1, Hoyle hasn’t put a ball past a keeper.

He had a chance to end his drought in the first half on Wednesday as he had the ball in a prime position in the box, but he opted to force a pass instead of taking a shot on net.

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“Just a poor decision. It’s just, you know, be greedy,” Hoyle said after Thursday’s practice. “The one thing I said to a couple of the boys before is in my whole career, I’ve been known by players I’ve played with for being greedy. I don’t think Valour players would necessarily say that about me from instances like yesterday.”

As for Forge, they’re scoring in bunches. They have 14 goals in nine games, and own the league’s top scorer in Tristan Borges, who has four to his name. Borges scored in Forge’s 2-0 win over Valour at IG Field on May 16.

“He’s very similar to Marco (Bustos). They come in on their left foot. You’ve got to deny him time and space or they’ll hurt you,” Gale said. “So, we need to deal with that and the collective threat that they have. It was a good match at home. We gifted them a flipping goal off of our own set piece that time. So, we got to eliminate those mistakes and don’t give them games. Don’t give them opportunities to hurt us or get punished and then see if we can take some of our own.”

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.