Valour FC stuns defending CPL champs

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This article was published 27/06/2021 (1564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was a result no one saw coming.

In arguably their most impressive performance in franchise history, Winnipeg’s Valour FC shocked the Canadian Premier League on Sunday by defeating the two-time defending champions Forge FC by a score of 2-0.

It was the first match of The Kickoff — the name of the Winnipeg bubble that will see all eight CPL clubs play their first eight matches of the season at IG Field — for both clubs. The Kickoff officially began on Saturday with a pair of matches.

Nobody was in the stands to watch Valour pull the upset, but their fan club — the Valour Army — stood outside the Gate 2 entrance for the entire 90 minute match. The fans had instruments and megaphones and did everything they could to support the hometown club while watching the match on the big screen in the stadium by peering through the fence.

“It feels good but it’s one game. It’s one game,” said Valour coach Rob Gale postgame.

“You can trot out all the excuses and everything else, we both had short preseasons, but we’ll have to get better. We will get better. I don’t care what anyone else says outside of the room. I don’t read it. I don’t listen to it. People might send it, I just ask for respect from my group of boys. I have full faith and confidence in them and I’m just pleased for them and I’m pleased for the fans that bounced up and down outside today.

“They were magnificent. They were social distanced, wearing a mask, in 27 degrees bouncing up and down for over an hour. They were brilliant. Tell me another club that has that.”

Valour wasted no time giving supporters something to cheer for as forward Austin Ricci was taken down in the box minutes into the match, leading to Moses Dyer scoring on a penalty kick at the six-minute mark. Ricci continued to be a thorn in Forge’s side as 20 minutes later, the second-year Valour player forced a turnover, split a pair of defenders and blasted a shot past goalie Triston Henry to make it 2-0. Ricci didn’t score a single goal last summer at The Island Games in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

“It feels great. Everyone in our locker room believed in ourselves,” said Ricci, a 25-year-old from Richmond Hill, Ont.

“We know we have a strong supporting cast and it didn’t really matter about the outside noise. We had a gameplan and it worked well.”

Forge won the possession battle at 66 per cent but only managed two shots on net. Their best chance came in the 86th minute when Christopher Nanco rattled a shot off the crossbar. Goalie Jonathan Sirois earned the clean sheet for Valour in his first appearance for the club. The FC Montreal loanee turned 20 on Sunday.

“I like to put my faith into young Canadian players. There’s a 20-year-old and I put him out there against the defending champs in the first game of the season. If it goes wrong, I’m an absolute idiot… But full credit to Jonathan Sirois… That’s really positive for him and happy birthday buddy, you deserve the match ball today because that’s not easy to do to come into this league and have a full team depending on you.”

Heading into Sunday, Valour had a 0-1-5 all-time record against Hamilton’s team.

“I think every result in these first four games people shouldn’t be betting on them. We’re all teams coming at different levels of preparedness, everyone’s doing things differently, so I think you’re going to see all these results,” said Forge coach Bobby Smyrniotis.

“Valour’s a good team. They’re a well organized team from that end. It’s a long season. Did we see something we didn’t expect? I don’t think so. But like I said, we can’t have a little simple mistake in the first half that puts us down 2-0. That’s a personal mistake on our end that leads to that goal. That allows a team tactically to shift things and Valour managed the game defensively very well and forced us to try and do a lot to get to the goal.”

For the majority of Valour’s roster, even players from last year’s team, it was their first time playing a game at IG Field. A 2-0 loss to Pacific FC on Oct. 19, 2019 was the last time Valour played at home.

“Last year I came here and one of the main reasons was I wanted to play in the stadium in front of the fans here and I wasn’t able to,” Ricci said. “I know for me personally and a lot of the other guys on the team that it was our first real game in the stadium and it was awesome.”

Valour’s next game is Wednesday when they take on HFX Wanderers FC at 6 p.m.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31