WINNIPEG – The story of the player-coach relationship of Valour FC midfielder Dylan Carreiro and manager Rob Gale reads like a movie script.

As he was settling into life in Canada nearly two decades ago, Gale – an up-and-coming soccer coach from England – decided to take in a youth game at a Winnipeg community centre.

There, he takes note of a young soccer prospect, a player who will one day earn him a first career professional win … while representing the same city that the two met in.

That’s not ripped from the back of a DVD box. That actually happened.

“I think Dylan was 8 (when I first saw him),” Gale recalled to CanPL.ca, when asked the first time he noticed the talent possessed by the now 24-year-old Carreiro. “I went out one Christmas and watched the Mini World Cup at FC Northwest and saw this little lad who you thought ‘There’s something there with this kid’.”

That ‘something’ led to Gale keeping tabs on Manitoba’s soccer prodigy, who had no idea at the time that his talent had caught the eye of his future provincial, national, and club head coach.

“I remember him from his days with Manitoba soccer and since then he has always been there for me,” Carreiro said. “He always tried to get me in the best places and get the most experience as possible.”

Carreiro would join Gale at the Manitoba Provincial program, where his performances representing his province saw his stock begin to rise across the country. He led the 2009 U-14 national championship with eight goals in four matches, including the match-winner in a 2-1 Bronze medal match against Alberta.

The winner in a 2-1 match … sound familiar?

You probably know by now, that Carreiro came on as a second-half substitute and scored the match-winning goal with a well-hit shot in the 78th minute of an eventual 2-1 Valour FC win over Pacific FC on Wednesday night. You may have also heard that Rob Gale predicted the outcome only 13 minutes earlier.

“You’re going to go on and win this game for me,” Gale told Carreiro as he pulled off his jacket and prepared to take the pitch. “As soon as he popped up with the ball and cut inside I thought ‘goal’.”

Managers look rather smart when their super sub bangs in a goal. It had to feel all the more rewarding for Gale, who has long put his trust in Carreiro – and for Carreiro, who wanted to prove his longtime coach right.

“It’s funny because the day before (the match) when we named the starting lineup he was disappointed not to be in the starting eleven,” Gale said. “I pulled Dylan aside and told him coming on later would open things up for him as this was the first time (Pacific FC) were playing back-to-back games.”

“Funny enough, I did exactly what he told me in the days leading up to the game,” Carreiro replied. “He just knew they might get a bit tired and I could create an impact. For a coach to have faith in a player the way Rob does in me I just want to do as good as I can to give it right back to him.”

The trust between Gale and Carreiro has long been used to the advantage of the Valour gaffer.

In his days with the Canadian youth program, Gale named Carreiro captain of Canada’s Under-20 national team for the 2014 Dale Farm Milk Cup in Northern Ireland. There, Carreiro would score another game-winner, the first in a 2-0 win over Mexico. Canada would go on to finish in second place.

“Over that time with the U-20’s we kept in touch quite a bit just seeing how each of us was doing,” Carreiro, the former Canadian Under-20 player of the year, said. “So when he called me about the Canadian Premier League, it was a no brainer to play under him.”

This homecoming feels all the sweeter because of the reunion between Carreiro and Gale. Gale’s connections helped play a part in Carreiro’s moves outside of Winnipeg. He would start with the Toronto FC academy before heading overseas with Queens Park Rangers in England. The central midfielder would go on to play in Scotland before returning to Canada and joining York University. Valour FC selected Carreiro second overall in the CPL-U SPORTS draft and eventually signed him to a full contract.

So what a moment in the 78th minute on Wednesday, when Carreiro became the first Winnipegger to score for his hometown team. A goal that has brought increased attention to the city’s new pro soccer team and sets up a perfect credit-rolling moment when Carreiro and Gale enter the field in front of an expected 10,000+ Manitobans on home turf for the first time on Saturday.

“I’ve never had the connection with a coach that I have with Rob,” Carreiro concluded. “It meant a lot to both of us that I got the game winner.”

And fortunately, in the age of endless movie sequels, this likely isn’t the end of this story, either.