Valour hungry for more than draws

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This article was published 08/06/2023 (1217 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s something to be said for a Valour FC squad that has scratched out results — in the form of draws — during some bitterly low points in the first eight matches of the season.

Winnipeg’s side has managed to stay in the thick of the Canadian Premier League table one point at a time, despite being ravaged by injuries. At their worst, the soccer club’s back line was almost completely exhausted, missing five defenders and a few midfielders from the lineup.

Yet, Valour sits in fifth place at 1-6-1 (nine points) and owns a growing sense optimism as reinforcements have slowly drawn back into action.

“Sometimes, when you get those amount of injuries, you can second-guess what you’re going to put on the field and how you’re going to try to manage the risk,” head coach Phillip Dos Santos said earlier this week.

Valour heads to Halifax for a matchup against the Wanderers (0-6-2) on Saturday (noon CT).

“It helped that we were still getting points and not losing games and still being able to put good performances together. We’re over that now, so it’s just, ‘keep pushing.’ I think the team has demonstrated too many good indicators for us to deviate from what we had originally set and what we built the team for with the personnel that we signed. We’re close I think,” added Dos Santos.

Valour captain Andrew Jean-Baptiste and newcomer Jordan Haynes near their respective returns to the defence. Jean-Baptiste, who has yet to appear in a match this season, is practising and will be available off the bench in Saturday’s contest, though, Dos Santos didn’t make any promises about his star defender playing.

Meanwhile, Haynes is expected to resume training next week. Midfielder Raphael Ohin and centre-back Matthew Chandler have no timelines to return from knee injuries.

Promising efforts from a depleted lineup have left the club hungry for more than draws. Valour is battle-tested, if nothing else, as it heads into the heat of the schedule, and as confident as it could be with its depth players answering the bell.

No player has done that more impressively than Matteo de Brienne, who played forward in Valour’s lineup last season before changing to left-back this year.

De Brienne has been the only mainstay on the backline, and a standout at that, leading the CPL with 20 interceptions this season. The position isn’t as new to him as many have thought, however, as he played left-back under Dos Santos during their time with the Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer in 2020.

“It’s a role that I’m familiar with but I never really myself to a point of really learning all the details of the game. I feel like now, with the coaches we have and previous players like (former Valour defender) Brett Levis, I’ve always kept an eye out for that and I’ve really learned how to become a more independent player in that situation,” said de Brienne.

“Just knowing the players I have around me. I think it’s really helped in terms of communication and just having people who will work for me the same way I work for them. It’s made the transition very easy, and knowing that if I make a mistake, I always got players around me to help me.”

Staying alive has also asked big contributors to find another gear. That started with Rayanne Yesli playing his best in goal. The second-year Canadian keeper has appeared in every match for Valour this season and leads the CPL in clean sheets (three) and saves (27) and has conceded just seven goals, the fewest among players who have appeared in at least six contests.

“We knew it was going to be difficult, but the guys that have stepped in have done a great job and, at the back, formed a partnership now that I think is really solid. I’m not worried about any injuries,” Yesli said.

“We feel like we’re dominating the games that we’re playing. If you saw the York (United) game that we just played, the Vancouver game, even the games before I feel like we were dominating. We have the most possession in a lot of these games, we’re creating a lot of chances, so, no, draws are not good enough for us. We want to go win every single game that we play.”

With a healthy lineup looming, the club’s next step will be finding production in the final third of the pitch. Valour has scored just eight times this year, the third-fewest in the league. Dos Santos said the difference from last year — when the club went through dry spells — is this group is creating a lot more opportunities.

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Now, it’s just a matter of finishing those chances.

“We’ve been good in many moments of every game and it’s always decided with little moments, so right now it’s about capitalizing — making the most out of our chances and remaining extremely solid like we’ve been defensively,” said Dos Santos. “I think that when the ball starts going in, those draws will be converted to wins.

“For me, it’s a matter of time.”

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.