Valour FC rewards fans’ patience with 3-1 win over Edmonton

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This article was published 19/08/2019 (2553 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Valour FC fans have been patient.

Real patient.

It’s been over three months since the Valour Army has witnessed their team get a victory at IG Field. And it’s been an even longer wait to see Valour score at least three goals in a match as Winnipeg’s professional soccer team failed to do so in their first 17 games between the Canadian Premier League’s spring and fall seasons.

But on Monday night at IG Field, both of those nasty streaks came to an end. Valour picked up their first win at home since a 1-0 victory over HFX Wanderers FC on May 11, as the home team scored three times in the second half to take down FC Edmonton 3-1 in front of 6,379 fans. The win keeps Valour alive in the fall campaign, as it vaulted them out of the CPL basement. Valour is now 2-3-3 and in fifth place in the seven team league with nine points. Edmonton, who blew an opportunity to surpass Forge FC (4-1-1) for first place, falls to 3-2-3.

“I’m delighted for the players. Absolutely I thought they were excellent,” said Valour head coach Rob Gale postgame. “We’ve not got our rewards at times this season at home and played front football like that. We’ve created a lot more chances in some games at home this season and not been able to put them in the back of the net and today we did. Full credit to the boys.”

After the first half, it looked like Valour and their fans would once again be leaving IG Field disappointed. In the 30th minute, Valour handed Edmonton a goal on a silver platter. After some questionable passing leading up to the play, Valour defender Yohan Le Bourhis passed the ball back to goalie Mathias Janssens. Janssens had a horrible clearing attempt as the ball hit Edmonton’s Oumar Diouck before bouncing back to Le Bourhis. But Diouck out muscled Le Bourhis for the ball and he found Easton Ongaro, who now has five goals in four games, for the easy tally to open the scoring.

But Valour managed to make up for their mistake early in the second half. Michael Petrasso was pushed from behind in the box to set up a Valour penalty kick. For the fourth time this season, Petrasso stepped up to the penalty spot and delivered as he tied the match at 1-1 in the 52nd minute. It turned out the Valour offence was only getting started. In the 69th minute, Valour forward Michele Paolucci had a defender all over him, but still managed to find midfielder Louis Beland-Goyette just outside the box. Beland-Goyette delivered arguably Valour’s best finish of the season, as he drilled a shot past Edmonton keeper Connor James to give Winnipeg a 2-1 lead. It was Beland-Goyette’s first goal of the year.

“Sometimes we joke with the teammates that if I score a goal, it’s always from outside the box,” Beland-Goyette said. “It doesn’t happen often, but when I have a chance, I want to put it in and I just did that today.”

Valour attacking midfielder and Winnipeg native Marco Bustos added an insurance goal in the 81st minute to put the game out of reach for Edmonton.

“Yeah, I think we should play every half like that,” said Beland-Goyette with a laugh. “It’s easy to say because we scored three goals and we won the game. But I’m very honest that we should play like this. We were first on every second ball. We were always on them when there was a 50-50 ball. Everybody was running. Substitutes that came in did defensive work. So, I think that’s what it takes to have a winning team. We have to continue like that. We can’t go you know, one win, then a loss, and then a win. We have to keep going with the wins.”

For a team that entered Monday with only 15 goals in 17 CPL games, the offensive outburst in the second half has been a long time coming. But Beland-Goyette said the team’s response to their first half blunder is what really stands out.

“I think it shows our mentality in this new season. We’ve progressed a lot on that. You know, going down at half, maybe in the first part of the season we would have trouble coming back up and try to play our game and try to score goals. Today, we did the exact opposite which is the way to go, which is the winning mentality.”

Valour didn’t have much time to rest up and prepare for Monday’s tilt as they hosted Forge on Saturday in a 3-1 loss. But even with heavy legs, Valour had their finest performance of the season and Gale said his team has been long overdue for a positive result on their home turf.

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“Well look, we’ve been excellent. Other than losing to Forge and then Halifax away, we’ve been very good this fall season,” Gale said.

“We’ve been very good at home and just little mistakes here and there. So, if we can put the 90 minutes together and eliminate the one mistake, we got all the ability to put performances together.”

This weekend, Valour will look to win their second match in a row for the first time in franchise history as they head to Victoria to take on Pacific FC on Saturday.

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.