For the second time in 72 hours, Pacific FC are advancing in the Canadian Premier League playoffs. They went coast-to-coast, beating York United on Wednesday 1-0, before grinding out the exact same result on Saturday in Halifax against the Wanderers.

The lone goal of Saturday’s match came from a Zachary Fernandez own goal in the 37th minute, forced by some good work from Pacific’s Kekuta Manneh. Pacific now awaits the result of Cavalry FC and Forge to see where and who they are going to play next in the CPL semifinal — knowing they are headed to either Calgary of Hamilton.

Here is what Pacific FC head coach James Merriman, Manneh, as well as Halifax Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar had to say after the match.

James Merriman, Pacific FC

On pulling this off after a quick turnaround and travel

“I think for a lot of reasons it feels amazing because of the way our season ended, we were in a difficult moment, we tried to fight it a little bit and it challenged us a little bit. Then in matches like this under this adversity, you find out who you are, who you are as a team, who you are as a club. We stood up, we stood up so I can’t speak enough about the boys, about the plays and I’m proud of them for the way they took it on, and the entire group the way they dealt with the travel, the quick turnaround to come into a hostile environment and get the job done exactly how we drew up the match plan is impressive all around.” 

On keeping their focus after the win against York

“Because we want more, we want to be in the final, we want to get to the final. We aren’t getting too high or low with the moments. We talk a lot about knockout football and playoff football as a team with the boys and as a team and we know it is about managing moments, managing momentum, the preparation, the focus, weathering storms at times, dealing with the fans, the referees, extra time, additional time. Stay focus, stay disciplined, believe in the plan, believe in what we are doing and more importantly stay together. If you do that, get a result. Result against York and result tonight.

On switching to the 4-4-2 formation

“There’s a lot that goes into that. We look at how Halifax plays, we look at our travel, the distance we had to come across the country to play this game and the time, the athletes that we have in our group. Kekuta Manneh with his speed, DJ, and Easton as the two strikers and Adonijah Reid who does an excellent job on the ball, and controlling the ball. Sean and Manu have built such a great relationship over the last couple years and they have been in big big matches. Sean’s still a young player but he’s been in all of our big games. We believe in trusting the match plan collectively with that eleven and the players were ready to come in as well. We had a good confidence, we felt good going into the game and we executed what we wanted to do.” 

On Kekuta Manneh stepping up in the playoffs

“You see his experience, you see his pedigree, you see his quality, we feel it in the locker room. He’s had injuries the last couple of years, he has taken a season to round into form and you see him on the break and in those transition moments and that’s Kekuta Manneh. If anybody has watched his career that is where he is at his best. Now you are starting to see that, which makes us that much more dangerous to have him as an option to start the match, or to come into games, he can break a game wide open.” 

On earning the clean sheet, holding on under pressure

“Those guys enjoy that, Thomas and Amer. When they are connected, when they are bought in to defend crosses, to stay compact across the back four, to organize Georges and Kunle, or Bradley whoever is in, they enjoy that. At the beginning of the season you say Emil Gazdov maybe a little bit nervy at times because his age and his experience. But now we don’t feel that, you don’t see that, so they have confidence in him as well which helps and we are able to deal with it. We are able to deal with a bit of pressure and like I said they actually enjoy it, especially TMG.” 

Kekuta Manneh, Pacific FC 

On how he’s feeling after the past few days

Excited, excited for the group. It has been a rough 72 hours for us, won that game and turnaround, travel 12 hours later, we got here literally less than 12 hours ago…I’m really happy for the group, we’ve put in everything we have and we’ve gotten rewarded at the end. That is what this group is all about, we fight ’til the end. The spirit in the group has been amazing, it has been building throughout the season. But I’m really excited, and I’m really excited for the guys and for our organization, they have tried everything to make the travel easier for us but the guys took it on the chin, and nobody was sulking and we came in and got the job done. 

On dropping back defensively and seeing out the result

It’s just them, like I said Halifax is a very, very good team. It’s not easy you know we have something to hold on to, and so naturally players we tend to clench under that and we dropped back a little more than we wanted to, but that’s just the natural reaction of players. When you have something to hold on to, you want to do everything that you can and we didn’t really want to drop that far but the game called for it.” 

Patrice Gheisar, Halifax Wanderers FC

On it just not being Halifax’s day

“We ended up hitting three posts, had two cleared off the line, I give a lot of credit to our guys that in the second half we certainly brought all that we could, and the bounces weren’t really going our way. Everything was a bit short, everything was a bit long. We take the experience, it is really difficult to take it because I still think we did enough to get something out of it but we didn’t and that’s the cruelty, or the beautiful part of this game, it depends on which end you are on today.”

On what he said a halftime to his side

“We got punished so the number one thing we wanted to do was take care of the ball a little bit more and we felt our football was really predictable, we had too many guys underneath the first line of pressure so we started to commit more numbers forward, we started to commit more guys to playing between lines and we relied more on wide play. That’s where we got the crossbars out of, we were trying to be a bit different than we were the first half and get more numbers forward.”

On his first season in Halifax

“It’s been a rollercoaster. I’ll never forget the first eight games and going to places I’ve never gone, to continue to believe in the way we play and the way we do things. We stuck to our principles. I’m so proud of the group for remaining with our identity and continuing to play. I genuinely believe this group has two or three extremely high and elite players that keep moving and moving up and I wish there were more games that we could have played to see what we were made of, but I’m really proud of the way we grew. We got better, we learned to manage things, the 46th-minute goals were gone, the 90-plus minute goals were gone so we learned a lot about management. We learned to stick to our principles and continue to play football and hopefully, the results will go our way and we will go further next year, can’t wait for it.”