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‘It’s one defeat too many’: Valour’s Beland-Goyette calls for ‘different mindset’

Valour FC midfielder Louis Beland-Goyette said his team needs to adopt “a different mindset” for the Fall portion of the 2019 CPL season, after his side lost 2-1 to Pacific FC at Investors Group Field on Thursday evening.

The 23-year-old fielded questions about possession and statistical advantages following the affair, but quickly put a stopper to talk of an unfair result, pointing out that, above all things, his side must look to the standings – and to grinding out results, regardless of style.

“We lose, once again. How we played? To be honest, I’m fed up with talking about it,” Beland-Goyette said after the match. “We talk about (being a) possession-team, possession-team, but we’re not winning games. I don’t know when we’re going to wake up and just win the game. We have to stop talking about possession and talk about winning games, not only about attractive football. That’s it.”

Valour FC conceded a first-half goal to Pacific FC, but 17-year-old forward Tyler Attardo managed to find an equalizer just seconds before the half-time whistle, bringing the two teams into the locker room tied at 1-1.

But the visiting outfit found the back of the net by way of an uncontested rocket by Terran Campbell, putting Valour back in the hunt for an equalizer.

It’s those moments that Beland-Goyette explained puts his side at a disadvantage, not just on the scoreline, but in their approach to executing off a game-plan.

“We get back into the game, and then we get another goal, then we chase, we chase, we chase,” Beland-Goyette waxed. “Most of the games, we’re just chasing. We’re never on our own tempo, scoring and then defending, or scoring one and then scoring another one. We have to change how we defend and how we attack.”

“Frustration’s really high right now,” he went on to admit. “We lose games, we get out of the Canadian Championship – we can’t forget about that, we got knocked out, and that’s bad momentum going into the season. We have to switch it around.”

This isn’t Valour’s first loss of the season, though the club has had a mixed bag of results, sitting in third after winning two of their last five fixtures, while losing three. Mathematically out of contention for the Spring title, Valour must now shift focus to the Fall portion of the season, though Beland-Goyette hopes this latest result serves as the right kind of motivation to improve in time for that fresh start.

“I feel like maybe it’s different this time,” Beland-Goyette said, of the loss. “It’s one defeat too many. We need a different mindset in the Fall, because if we don’t change anything, it’s just going to roll on, defeats, defeats, defeats. We don’t want that. We have to do something different to what we’ve been doing this whole season.”