Final Score: Valour FC 0-3 Pacific FC
Goalscorers: Reid 5′, Heard 83′, Sellouf 85′
Game of the 2023 season: 67
CPL match: 434
Match in a minute or less
Pacific FC are back to winning ways once again, as they snapped a five-game winless run with a commanding 3-0 road victory over Valour FC at IG Field on Saturday.
Eager to snap that skid, Pacific would come out strongly in this game, too, finding the back of the net through Adonijah Reid just five minutes into the game. Not only that, but they could’ve had a few more before half time, too, if not for some big saves from Valour’s Rayane Yesli, including a highlight-reel stop on Easton Ongaro right before half time.
Thanks to Yesli’s heroics, that kept Valour in the game in the second half, where they seemed the likelier team to score the next goal and find an equalizer for much of the second 45 minutes.
Unfortunately for them, however, that goal would not come, and Pacific would make them pay for that late on, as Josh Heard and Ayman Sellouf scored a pair of crucial goals two minutes apart in the 83rd and 85th minute to allow their team to cruise to the 3-0 result in the end.
Three Observations
Pacific capitalizes on width of IG Field with intricate possession play:
As is well known across the CPL, it’s never easy to play at IG Field in Winnipeg.
One of the big reasons for that? The width of the field, which is a bit wider than usual, something that Valour typically does well to use to their advantage in home games.
Always eager to push play horizontally in possession, before trying to stretch opponents with their speed in wide areas, Valour knows how to take advantage of that space, on both sides of the ball.
Because of that, they’ve typically done well at IG Field, losing just five of their last 22 games at home heading into this match.
With Pacific’s win in this game, however, that’s now six in 22, and even more concerningly, they’ve now suffered three home losses in a row, something that hadn’t happened since the first half of the inaugural 2019 CPL season.
Yet, while that’s indicative of Valour’s current struggles, credit has to be given to Pacific for their performance, too.
In particular, there was one thing that really stood out with their play in this game – they did well to take advantage of what Valour usually does to frustrate their opponents s on the wider IG Field surface.
Right from the first minute, Pacific showed strong patience in possession, doing well to stretch Valour out, opening up critical spaces in central channels. Especially in the first half, that seemed to tire Valour right out, as Pacific grabbed full control of the match despite being on the road.
As a result, they finished with 52.7% possession on the day, including 56.2% in the first half, doing well to dictate the tempo of the game with their play on the ball.
“We’re a possession-based team,” Pacific’s goalkeeper, Emil Gazdov, explained afterwards. “We want to play out of the back and keep the ball for the majority of the time, as we have certain goals on how many passes we want to hit, for our possession percentage.”
“Then, on a bigger field, the ball moves quicker, so we wanted to get the ball moving, tire them out, open up the spaces, and we did exactly that.”
To Valour’s credit, they’d find a way to respond in the second half, where they had 51.8% possession, but by then it was too little, too late, as Pacific had already set their game plan in motion.
Knowing Valour’s ability to tire out teams over the course of 90 minutes, Pacific elected to pull a page out of their book, something that paid off when they were able to open up the game and grab two late goals against some pretty tired Valour legs.
Doing well to capitalize on their strength in midfield and speed in wide areas, it was a vintage Pacific performance on both sides of the ball, really, one that they’d desperately needed after their recent slump. Their dominance is reflected statistically, too – Pacific won the xG battle 2.27-0.39, showing how good they were in all phases of the game.
Now, they’ll look to build off this, as they look to push their way back up the top of the table, but they’ll certainly feel that this is a good spot to start.
“We spoke a lot about it coming into this match,” Pacific’s head coach, James Merriman, added on his end. “We know the space (this field has), and we wanted to control that space with the ball and we wanted to control that space without it.”
“We spoke about all thirds of the pitch, too, especially our build-up in the middle third, we knew that if we could be patient and composed and move the ball side-to-side, we would find gaps and find spaces to attack, and I think we did. We created great chances from that build-up.”
“And we continued that right through the first half, so we were really happy with the way that we approached this with our mentality and composure, both attacking and defending, we looked more like ourselves.”
As for Valour, however, they’ll need to find a way to get back to their usual service at home, as they’ve still got five crucial clashes at IG Field left this season.
While they’ll be comforted by the fact that Pacific has overall been good on the road this season, where they’ve picked up 14 points from seven games, there’s a reason why Valour has typically been one of the best at home the last few years, and they’ll want to return to that as soon as possible.
“Right now, I need our team to get their references back, get belief and have each other’s backs, so that in the long run we can find ourselves in the fight from now until the end of the season,” Valour head coach, Phil Dos Santos, said afterwards.
He added: “Results are important, results will build confidence, but we need to do it in a way where people believe that ultimately our objective is still intact, and we can still go after what we had set as goals from the beginning of the season.”
Another slow start sinks Valour in must-win game:
Yet, while Valour will be looking to turn IG Field back into a fortress, they’ve still got other areas of their game to tighten up, home or away.
One of them remains their slow starts, as heading into this match, they’d only scored first in five of their previous 16 games, in which they had a record of 3W-1D-1L.
Compared to a record of 0W-4D-6L when their opponents score first (they also had a pair of 0-0 draws that don’t fit either category), that shows how important the first goal has been to them, even if it’s remained elusive in most games.
Frustratingly, however, that ended up haunting them again in this game, as it would take just five minutes for Pacific to get on the board through Adonijah Reid.
From there, they’d not look back, using that early goal to settle into that rhythm, one that Valour struggled to break them out of.
Yet, that just shows the value of that opening goal, and why Valour will be frustrated that they can’t seem to find it in games this season.
Not only that, but they’ll be even more frustrated that they’ve been giving away that first goal far too easily as of late, too – in fact, with this early Reid tally, that was the fourth time in five games that Valour has given up the first goal inside the first 30 minutes of the game.
Their record in those four games? 0W-0D-4L, showing how much it’s hurt them not being able to get in front early in games, which ended up being the case once again in this match.
“Nobody wants to be down early in a match,” Valour forward, Ahinga Selemani, said afterwards. “It’s always an uphill battle from there, but (when that happens), you just have to do the best you can with the next situation, it sounds cliche, but you really have to look into the next thing, the next play and believe that you can still tie the game up or close up the deficit.”
Of course, there are a lot of questions to be asked about why the first goal is so crucial for Valour – sometimes, you do need to be able to claw back results as early goals can just happen in this sport.
In particular, it continues to highlight their offensive struggles, as they remain in last place in the league in goals for with just 13, and have now been shut out seven times this season.
At the same time, while their offence continues to struggle, you can also look to their defence as a big reason behind this recent slump, as it’d had been a strength all season long until this recent five-game stretch, in which they’ve allowed 10 of the 20 goals they’ve allowed all season.
Knowing their struggles up front, they’ll be frustrated that they’ve allowed some sloppy goals as of late, making it harder for themselves than they need to be.
This Reid goal was a great example of that, as Valour made a sloppy turnover in midfield, and got way too open in transition, leaving them to be picking the ball out of their net just minutes later.
“The goal is one thing, for me (it’s frustrating) how slowly we started the game,” Dos Santos said. “It felt like we were losing every battle, every 50/50. This team has always been hard to play against, opponents always have a hard time finding spaces against us, but it just looked like Pacific very early in the game had a lot of open space to play against us, which was frustrating.”
Yet, all of that just shows what lies ahead for this Valour side. At this stage of the campaign, they know what they are, and what they need to work on, so now it’s about executing.
From returning to their earlier defensive service to starting games better, and potentially even finding some of those elusive goals, they know what they need to do in order to win going forward.
Now, however, they need to start executing, quickly, before it becomes too late for them.
“Right now, it’s not about X’s and O’s (for us),” Dos Santos said. “It’s about making sure that the guys regain the joy of being on the field together, and go back to what helped the team succeed in the early stages of the season, and it’s my mandate and my job to make sure that that happens.”
Super-sub Sellouf allows Pacific to take advantage of transition game in second half:
While Pacific’s strong start was impressive to watch, even if they’ll feel that they should’ve been up by more than just 1-0 at half time, how they finished was arguably even better.
After hitting a bit of a wall in the second half, as Valour started to grow back into the game, it did look like Pacific would be on the ropes for a little bit.
Unable to offer that same relentless pressure off the ball that they had in the first half, and failing to keep the ball as they did (their passing percentage dropped from 86.2% in the first half to 79.3% in the second), Valour all of a sudden looked prime to nab an equalizer.
Sensing that, however, Merriman then turned to a key face to help his team out – Ayman Sellouf, who’d enter the game off the bench in the 65th minute.
Usually a crucial starter as of late for Pacific, it was a surprise to even see him on the bench in the first place, even if it was to manage his minutes in a busy season.
Yet, while they might’ve missed him in moments in the first 65 minutes, the nice thing about having him on the bench meant getting him on the field fresh against tired legs for the last 25, which was a key silver lining.
Especially given how much Pacific had tired Valour out early on, it just felt like Sellouf’s insertion could be key, as he looked to blow the game open.
Which, to his credit, he’d absolutely do. It took a while to ease into the game, but then, in the last 10 minutes, he really came alive.
As Valour chased a late equalizer, they decided to open the game right up, desperate to create some offence.
Unfortunately for them, that meant leaving more gaps in transition, and that’s where Sellouf started to shine. As a result, he nabbed a key assist in the 83rd minute, before grabbing a goal in the 85th minute, both coming off transition moments.
The more Valour’s legs tired, the fresher Sellouf seemed to get, and he could’ve easily had more goal contributions to his name late on, too.
Through that, he’d really help Pacific close out the game with an exclamation point, proving to be the crucial final puzzle piece for them tactically on the day.
At the same time, that just shows how important Sellouf continues to be to this team. Now up to 11 goal contributions on the year, tied for the league lead as of writing, he just keeps popping up in key moments for this Pacific side.
Plus, he’s shown that he can do so in different roles, too. Either as a starter (three goals, two assists) or off the bench (two goals, four assists), he can be so dangerous for Pacific in different ways.
Yet, he’s not the only one doing the same on this Pacific team, who lead the league with 28 goals for a reason. When they’re clicking, they can be so dangerous, as they’ve got threats all over the roster, and can hurt you in different ways, as Sellouf did to Valour on Saturday.
“We know what Ayman brings when the game gets a little bit stretched and there’s more space,” Merriman explained. “At the start of the match, when both teams are very organized and intense, sometimes in the second half there can be gaps and spaces to exploit.”
“This is what he’s proven he can do, he can come in games and cause a lot of problems, so it’s great for him to show good mentality and have this impact, because he’s also been very good for us starting the games, as well.
“So for him to get a goal coming off the bench, we’re really happy with him with his mentality, attitude to show his quality like that.”
CanPL.ca Player of the Match
Kunle Dada-Luke, Pacific FC
Despite Sellouf’s late heroics, however, it wasn’t enough to claim a Player of the Match nod, as Kunle Dada-Luke put in a big shift across 90 minutes to secure the victory.
He was solid offensively, nabbing an assist to go along with one key pass, one dribble and four passes into the final third, but was even better defensively, finishing with two tackles, four interceptions, nine recoveries and winning four out of eight of his duels.
Considering he was going up against one of the most dangerous wide players in the league in Valour’s Pacifique Niyongabire for most of this game, that’s no small feat, yet just shows how impressive of a performance Dada-Luke put up across 90 minutes.
What’s next?
Valour will head out on the road next week, as they get set to play Vancouver FC at Langley’s Willoughby Community Park on Sunday, August 6th (2:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. CT). Meanwhile, Pacific has a big trip ahead of them, as they prepare for a visit to Nova Scotia to take on the Halifax Wanderers at Wanderers Ground on Sunday, August 7th (11:00 p.m. PT/3:00 p.m. AT).
Watch all CPL matches live on OneSoccer. In addition to its website and app, OneSoccer is now available on TELUS channel 980 and on Fubo TV. Call your local cable provider to ask for OneSoccer today.