The 2024 Canadian Premier League season is only a month and a half old, but Valour FC have already travelled all across Canada.

They began their campaign in Langley, B.C., before heading out to Vancouver Island. Then it was Hamilton, a pair of matches in Ottawa, and Toronto. The past two weeks saw a trip out east to Halifax, before heading across the prairies to play in Calgary.

Finally, on Sunday, after eight straight away matches in all competitions — seven in the CPL — Valour FC will get to step onto the pitch at Princess Auto Stadium for the first time in 2024. The stadium’s new turf surface has finally been installed. Now, the Winnipeg club will be looking to turn that newly renovated pitch into a fortress once again.

“It’s a bit of a relief that we feel,” said Valour FC midfielder Dante Campbell. “We know that now we kind of went through adversity and got over a hump of being on the road for [so long]. We’re now presented with an opportunity to take advantage of this homestand that we have.” 

Starting with a match on Sunday against Vancouver FC, Valour will play three straight matches at home. Fourteen of their final 21 matches of the 2024 season will be played at Princess Auto Stadium. For a club that is still searching for its first CPL playoff appearance, it is a significant opportunity to gain ground in the league table.

For a Valour club that entered this season with 14 new players after finishing at the bottom of the Canadian Premier League table in 2023, such an extended road trip to start the season presented a number of challenges. Travel and activation days kept the players off the training pitch, removing opportunities to work on tactics and chemistry.

“You get out of a routine a little bit when you’re not playing any games at home, I think what gets more disrupted is your ability to train and properly load the players with a full cycle of work,” said Valour FC head coach Phil Dos Santos.

Valour struggled to find any sort of rhythm early in the season, as they lost their first six matches of the year in all competitions. That included an incredibly disheartening 7-0 loss to Atlético Ottawa in the Canadian Championship preliminary round. But the group stuck together, and in recent weeks have shown signs of turning a corner.

“We got to grow a lot, we got to see players in different circumstances and learn about them and learn about the team,” said Dos Santos. “I think that we tried to take this in a way where we would grow as a team.

“Even though we were going through difficulties and challenging times, the group was together. The group was working hard, they didn’t turn against each other. They weren’t finding excuses.”

When the club finally picked up their first victory of the 2024 season in a 2-1 victory over the Halifax Wanderers, the relief was evident. Valour players and staff embraced, as striker Jordan Swibel, who scored the winning goal, let out a monstrous roar at midfield.

“In the back of everybody’s head it’s like, when is the first one going to come?,” said Campbell. “And we finally got it, and we deserved it.”

They followed that performance by drawing 1-1 with 2023 CPL regular season winners Cavalry FC at ATCO Field, one of the most difficult away dates in the Canadian Premier League.

“It was important for us to collect those points and come home with a bit of momentum because it allows us to now play a bit more free,” said Dos Santos.

That freedom of play has been evident in how Valour has played over the last few matches. They have been scoring gorgeous goals, not the least of which was Juan Pablo Sánchez’s stunning strike to open the scoring against Cavalry this past weekend. Playing that sort of football will only be easier now as they step onto brand new turf in Winnipeg, which by all accounts is a top-quality FIFA-level surface.

“The surface is good, I think that it will probably be the best turf, if not one of the best in the league,” said Dos Santos. “But being home, being in that home routine, for me, is what makes the biggest difference.”

Campbell echoes that sentiment. After so much travel and disruption to routine, nutrition, sleep and other important factors around peak performance, now they will have greater control over those elements of their preparation.

“We’re using our own stuff, our own gym, our own kitchen staff, whatever it may be, we’re in the comfort of our own home,” said Campbell. “So it’s up to us to use this opportunity to give us an advantage against teams that have to travel here and play here.”

That advantage has traditionally proven to be a pretty significant one as Princess Auto Stadium has long been one of the most tougher road trips in the Canadian Premier League. Valour went nearly a calendar year between July 30, 2022 and July 1, 2023 without losing a match at home, and 63.8 per cent of Valour’s all-time CPL regular-season victories have come at Princess Auto Stadium.

Last year, however, the club struggled to replicate that historical dominance. Valour drew their first four matches at home, and despite winning the next two, would lose seven of their final eight at home. The 13 home points they collected in 14 games were the fewest in the league last season.

“It’s very important for us to change that from day one,” said Dos Santos. “I think that the team needs to set a tone. You know, we need to understand that playing home, it’s our place. It’s our field. For me, it’s about maximizing points. Every game needs to be a game for us to try and win, to compete, to enjoy, to galvanize our fans and use our fans to our advantage.”

The team knows that just because they will be walking out of the home dressing room more often than not for the rest of the season, picking up points is by no means a guarantee. They still need to put in strong performances to earn results.

“Games are not just won from being at home,” said Campbell. “So it’s a positive for us to be at home, but it’s still an opportunity for us to create what we want, to create the environment, the fortress. We want this to be a place [where] teams don’t want to play.”

Their home schedule gets off to an incredibly challenging start, however. Valour FC’s first three home games of the season come against the clubs who currently sit in the top three spots in the league, starting with second-place Vancouver FC, before taking on top of the table Atlético Ottawa on June 9 and third-place Pacific FC on June 14.

“We need these games because if we aspire for big things, if we want to meet our objectives, these are games that we need to go for and win the three points,” said Dos Santos. “And it’s a good test for us to see how we come back home and match ourselves with some of the good teams of this league.”

It will be a massive challenge, but also an excellent opportunity. If Valour can pick up big results in these matches, it will make a statement to the rest of the league that playing in Winnipeg is once again going to be a nightmare away day. It will also set them up perfectly to start climbing up the table and back above the playoff line that they so desperately want to clear this season.