2024 CPL Regular Season — Match #90
Pacific FC vs. Vancouver FC
September 14, 2024 at 2 p.m. PT
Starlight Stadium in Langford, British Columbia
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca & TELUS Ch. 980 // Tickets available here

For the fourth and final time this regular season, Pacific FC and Vancouver FC will do battle in the Salish Sea Derby, as the pair of B.C.-based rivals get set to meet at Starlight Stadium on Saturday.

There, arguably the biggest derby match between these two in their short history awaits them, for different reasons.

The eight meeting between both sides, who marked their first official matchup on April 15th, 2023, this time will see both teams face off with other implications in mind.

Namely, there’s the battle for the CPL playoffs, which remains as tight as ever, with Vancouver sitting in the fifth and final playoff spot with 26 points, just three points ahead of sixth-place Pacific FC, who also have a game in hand on Vancouver.

Essentially, what that means is that the winner of this game will control their destiny in the race of the playoffs, with a draw likely favouring Vancouver.

Otherwise, the big story to watch will be to see if Vancouver can pull off a feat not many end up doing against other teams, much less a rival, and that’s to win all four regular season meetings between these teams in 2024, as they’ve won the first three matches of the year between both teams already.

Having entered this game riding a streak of five straight wins over Pacific, they’ll want to keep the good times rolling with another victory, even if Pacific will have plenty to say about that.

Speaking of the hosts, they enter this game hungry and motivated, however, as they snapped a four-game losing streak and a seven-game winless run in CPL play this past weekend, defeating the Halifax Wanderers 3-0 at Starlight Stadium.

Just the second time in which they’ve scored more than two goals this season, still sitting with a league-low 17 goals in 21 games despite that outburst, they’ll hope they can use it as fuel to fill the net with more goals over their last seven games of the season.

“We need more of this,” Pacific head coach, James Merriman, said this week. “It doesn’t need to be perfect. We need to keep taking early shots, we need to take advantage of 1V1 situations to put in early crosses, to keep making runs in the box, commit more numbers forward and to play more on the front foot. At this point, we have seven games left to get into the playoff spot, and we have to show that mentality in the way that we defend and in the way that we attack.”

As for Vancouver, they’ll also be looking for an offensive spark, given that they’re coming off back-to-back losses where they failed to score, dropping 1-0 results to Atlético Ottawa and York United.

Sitting with a record of 2W-0D-5L (6 PTS) in their last seven games, they’ll want to finish the year on a high note, having spent most of the season in a playoff spot, something they’ll want to keep doing even as those around them try to push them out.

“I’ve seen it in the last month in training, the team is very united,” Vancouver’s head coach, Afshin Ghotbi, added. “They’re very excited to play together, and they’re very excited for this challenge of going to Pacific and try to win their sixth derby in a row and to qualify the team for the first time in its history to the playoffs.”

In terms of player availability, Pacific will be without Josh Heard through injury and the pair of Juan Quintana and Cédric Toussaint due to suspensions, although they did welcome back Marco Domínguez, Reon Moore and Steffen Yeates, who were all away on international duty in the last match. Meanwhile Vancouver didn’t have any worries about availability, as Mikaël Cantave, Gabriel Bitar and Grady McDonnell all returned from also being on international duty.

All CPL and Canadian Championship matches will be broadcast live on OneSoccer, available as a linear channel on Telus’ Optik TV (Channel 980) as well as online at OneSoccer.ca, through the OneSoccer app and on the fuboTV Canada platform.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Will Vancouver be able to maintain edge in derby? The most fascinating thing about Vancouver’s run of success in the derby? That all but one of the seven matchups between these two teams have now been decided by one goal, as it’s not as if Vancouver’s been blowing Pacific out of the water in each meeting. Yet, that’s what’s made this matchup so fascinating to analyze, as it’s clear that Vancouver has still has an edge despite that, even if it’s hard to quantify. Certainly, the big thing continues to be Vancouver’s mentality, as they’ve done a good job of finding a way to step up in the key moments, with three of their wins being decided by goals scored after the 80th minute. Because of that, look for them to manage those moments once again in this match, especially after how they managed the last derby, in which they kept their first-ever clean sheet over Pacific in a tidy 1-0 victory. As for Pacific, however, they’ll use those tight margins of an example why they feel they can win this game, given that they’ve been so close to victory on several occasions across their last five derby matches. Now, however, they’ll want to manage those key moments better, and to make sure they don’t open the door for any late Vancouver heroics. Perhaps, the best way to do that will be to have a strong start and to put the game away early, something they’ll feel they can do given that they’ve opened the scoring in two of three derby matches this year, yet were unable to build on those hot starts with more goals, which allowed Vancouver to turn the score around on both occasions.

• Moses Dyer looking to keep leading from the front for Pacific: Fittingly, one of the key players for Pacific in this game is a former Vancouver attacker, as Moses Dyer will look to build off a CPL Player of the Week performance in their win over Halifax. A game in which he scored and won a penalty while also putting in a complete performance on both sides of the ball, it was a good example of why Pacific were eager to bring him in on loan this summer. Deemed surplus to requirements at Vancouver, who in turn acquired Ayman Sellouf on loan in a deal that has so far proven to be a ‘win-win’ for both sides, Dyer’s shown that he’s been what Pacific have missed in attack, with this latest performance a prime example of that. Because of that, look for him to build off that, especially ahead of a derby match, one where one will expect him to be fired up. Having put in one of his best performances of the season in Vancouver’s 2-1 win over Pacific on May 25th, where he scored and put in a similar complete showing on and off the ball, he’s shown that he enjoys this fixture from the other side, and that’s without considering the extra motivation he might now have to show what his old side is missing out on. For someone who doesn’t usually need a boost to get going, that’s an exciting proposition. “You can see that he changes the dynamic of our attack,” Merriman said of Dyer. “He’s so aggressive with and without the ball, he does a lot of the dirty work that goes unnoticed that is so important in terms of how we’ve always wanted to play, as we want to be on the front foot and we want to have high energy in our pressing.”

• Can Vancouver start off on the front foot? In three of their last four games, Vancouver have conceded a goal inside the first six minutes of a match, doing so in losses to Forge, Atlético Ottawa and York. Three matchups against teams inside the top four, Vancouver will look back on those matches and rue that they had to play most of them on the back foot, which ended up playing into the hands of their opponents on each occasion. Because of that, look for them to come out flying in this game, as they’ll have those early goals at the front of their mind. For what it’s worth, Vancouver haven’t needed to score first to get results, something they’ve proven in two of their three wins over Pacific this year, but entering a time of year where goals can be a bit harder to come by as teams face each other for the fourth, fifth and even sixth time of the year, it can make a big difference to not have to chase games early. As a result, expect Vancouver to come out flying. Perhaps, this could be a perfect occasion for Sellouf to find something against his old team, or for Gabriel Bitar and Mikaël Cantave to mark their returns from international break in style – and one can imagine that Alejandro Díaz will have something to say in this game, having scored the winner in the last match between these two sides. “I think at the end of the day, the players have to take responsibility, and they put their hands up,” Ghotbi said. “All of them this week have put their hands up. We had some meetings where we showed the images (from the last few games) and we talked about how they can improve in those moments, the positions that they take, the decisions that they take, and the mentality they need to bring to the to the pitch.”

PROJECTED STARTING XIs

Pacific FC: Gazdov; Dada-Luke, Meilleur-Giguère, Ceceri, Mukumbilwa; Yeates, Domínguez, Young; Tîrcoveanu; Dyer, Zanatta

Vancouver FC: Irving; Chung, Romeo, Enyou, Cameron; Fry, Rommens, Garcia; Cantave, Díaz, Sellouf

ALL-TIME SERIES

Pacific wins: 2 || Vancouver wins: 5 || Draws: 0

Last meeting:

Aug. 11, 2024 — Vancouver FC 1-0 Pacific FC

KEY QUOTES

“It’s got playoff implications, absolutely, and that’s the goal right now – we’re fighting to get back into the playoff position. We’re fighting to be there in the postseason, it’s really important for us to keep that standard as a club, as an organization, as a team, and we’re well aware that we put ourselves in this position. And then secondly, there’s where we’re at in terms of the derby this season with Vancouver, we need to change the storyline, it’s simple, and we need to give everything for the fans as that’s what they appreciate. So we’ll be on the front foot tomorrow, the game will be alive, we know how Vancouver likes to play. This is going to be one for the fans, and we need to be there in the end with three points.” — Pacific FC head coach James Merriman

“(I’ve got) nothing to prove. I just want to go and do my job and prove to myself and prove to the team that we can score goals. We have one objective, and that’s to make the playoffs, and to make the playoffs, we have to beat the next team since it’s a six-point game, so that’s all that matters. We just have to beat this team, it doesn’t matter about my personal goals, it’s just about the team goals, and that’s to win.” — Pacific FC forward Moses Dyer

“I think to be able to beat a team five times in a row and now go for the sixth, if you look at and say we have one up on them and that it’s going to be an easy game for us to win, if we approach it that way, I don’t think we’ll ever win five games in a row. I think what’s made us successful is that we’ve approached every game with the same concentration and energy that’s necessary to win derbies. There’s a certain level of psychological preparation and mental preparation you need, you need to get the players to understand what the derby is going to require, as derbies have their own sensitivities.” — Vancouver FC head coach Afshin Ghotbi

“Playing a derby is always exciting, and we all know that. Derbies, they’re different, you’ve got to play in a different way and push harder. It’s going to be a special game for me, I’ve played for both teams, but I’m in Vancouver right now, and I’m going to work super hard to get those three points in Victoria, so hopefully tomorrow we can show the strength that we have and the quality we have. ” — Vancouver FC forward Alejandro Díaz