Disappointing draw for Valour FC

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This article was published 21/08/2022 (1462 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What looked like a light of hope wound up being a train that has left Valour FC’s playoff hopes in question.

The Winnipeg club drew 1-1 against last place Edmonton FC, in what was a must-win — and should-win — game on a sweltering Sunday afternoon at IG Field.

“It was a frustrating one for all of us really. A team like Edmonton, we felt like we could’ve taken six points from them, but we’ve only taken two so far,” said defender Rocco Romeo.

The split added a single point to Valour’s cause in the Canadian Premier League playoff race, bringing its total to 27 points on a 7-6-7 record, good for fifth in the league. But the result had the feeling of a lateral move for a club whose schedule is quickly shrinking.

At the game’s end, Valour was seven points behind Cavalry FC for the fourth and final playoff spot. However, Cavalry had yet to play Atlético Ottawa later in the day.

Eight games remain on Valour’s schedule, and while that means the team can add up to 24 points to their current standing, they need to stack wins quickly before the first playoff berth in club history becomes unreachable.

“We seem to have trouble against teams that sit back and concede the territorial control. Today was another one of those and as a coach, I need to take responsibility on that,” said head coach Phillip Dos Santos.

Goalkeeper Rayane Yesli made his fourth consecutive start in goal for the home club. Jonathan Sirois, the team’s usual starter, has not played since July 30, when Valour fell 2-1 to Pacific FC.

Dos Santos was adamant that he was simply riding the hot hand, as Yesli boasts two clean sheets and just two goals conceded over the four-game stretch.

Valour was short a mainstay of the backend, as captain Andrew Jean-Baptiste did not dress after injuring himself while training earlier this week. Midfielder Daryl Fordyce wore the yellow armband in his place.

Billy Forbes was confusingly handed a yellow card during added time in the first half.

Seconds later, following an Edmonton free kick, he was sprung up the right side of the pitch, where he patiently dribbled the ball into the box.

As Forbes has done so often since arriving in Winnipeg, he proceeded to put his defender in a blender, forcing him to fall to the turf. He was dislodged from the ball by another defender before Sean Rea picked up the loose ball and blasted a shot into the Edmonton net to draw blood for Valour first.

The goal was Rea’s fifth of the season and second in the last three games.

Valour dominated the first half, possessing the ball 65.7 per cent of the time in the first 45 minutes and owning three shots on target to Edmonton’s one, which didn’t come until the 34th minute.

“When you have so much ball… and you get to key areas but you don’t get enough clear chances, it’s because you have a problem when it comes to the final entry and decision-making in the final third,” Dos Santos said.

The visitors came out of the locker room swinging. Valour found themselves discombobulated in their own box as Edmonton’s Azriel Gonzalez took a crossing pass right in front of the home net and potted the easy goal past a sprawling Yesli to knot the match in the 47th minute.

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Despite Valour turning aggressive later in the match, they never found the back net again. Leading scorer Moses Dyer had the best look of the bunch in the 85th minute when he spun and booted the bouncing ball from 10 feet away. Edmonton keeper Darlington Murasiranwa somehow got enough of the shot with his leg before jumping on the ball.

Sunday’s match was the first of a four-game homestand for Valour, who hope they didn’t just hammer the first nail in their season’s coffin.

Valour (7-6-7) will have a week to regroup before they do battle with Pacific FC (10-5-5) next Sunday at IG Field.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam

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.

Every piece of reporting Josh 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.