Final Score: Pacific FC 0-3 Valour FC
Goalscorers: Antonoglou 43′, Hundal 77′ (PK), Binaté 90+2′
Game of the 2024 season: 62
CPL match: 546

Match in a minute or less

For the first time since May 1st, 2019, Valour have defeated Pacific at Starlight Stadium, winning 3-0 to put them right back in the playoff mix.

Themi Antonoglou opened the scoring for Valour in the 43rd minute, as he managed to curl one home with his right foot from inside of the box, using precision instead of power to give his team a crucial 1-0 lead right before the break. Then, Shaan Hundal doubled the lead for Valour in the 77th minute, as he stepped up to take a penalty, slotting the ball into the bottom right corner to make it 2-0.

From there, Abdul Binaté sealed the victory in added time, curling a spectacular shot into the top corner from distance against his old club to make it 3-0, a lead his team would carry over the finish line to give them all three points.

Three Observations

Valour erase bad Starlight Stadium memories with commanding win:

It’s safe to say that Starlight Stadium hasn’t always been the kindest place to Valour over the years.

Having won there in their first-ever visit back on May 1st, 2019, picking up a 2-1 win, they’ve come up short on most of the subsequent 10 visits they’ve made to the stadium, losing nine and drawing one of those meetings.

Because of that, getting any sort of points out of this matchup would’ve been seen as a positive, as Valour would not have turned their nose up at a draw before the game.

Therefore, for them to go out and not just win, but do so in style, putting together arguably their most complete performance of the season? It’s hard to think of a more dreamlike scenario for this Valour side.

“I’ve never won here, and I got sacked here (as an assist with the Vancouver Whitecaps in 2021),” Valour head coach, Phil Dos Santos, joked afterwards. “So I had that ghost that I had to get rid of, and now it’s gone and I don’t need to think about that anymore.”

Yet, that’s a credit to his team’s performance, as they did what they needed to do in order to win.

That started defensively, as they were nearly flawless off the ball, limiting Pacific to just 11 shots and a total of 1.05 xG en route to a deserved clean sheet. Pacific threatened them, of course, as one would expect at home, but Valour stood tall in the face of that, making some key defensive interventions to keep Pacific off the board.

From there, they were dangerous in possession, doing well to push the ball into dangerous areas, finding space in dangerous areas.

Then, most importantly, they executed in both boxes, as they took their chances, and made sure that Pacific didn’t create any surprise goals that could’ve changed the momentum of the game.

Thanks to that, they were able to keep just their third clean sheet of the season, while scoring three or more goals for the first time, showing how big of a performance it was for them.

“We know this is a type a tough place to come, but our group is resilient,” Antonoglou said after the game. “We like to compete, and that’s what we did tonight.”

It couldn’t come at a better time for Valour, either. Now set to tackle a crucial four game homestand, it’s put them within touching distance of the playoff race, which will make for an exciting August.

After a tough start to the season as they navigated the challenge of a new roster and a seven game road trip, they’ll be happy to sit in that mix, and will see this win as something to build off as they try and navigate that challenge of pushing into the playoff picture.

Having strung together two of their best performances of the season in back-to-back games, this is the consistency that Dos Santos has wanted to see from his group, and he’ll hope it’s just the beginning of what’s to come for this Valour side going forward.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” Dos Santos promised. “Let’s learn to win, let’s enjoy the wins. Everyone’s talking about the set of home games that we have, the truth is that we still have to play those games, we have to win them, and we have to compete, so there’s a lot of work to do, but I liked to see that the team was able to put together back-to-back (strong) performances.”

Pacific pushed out of a playoff spot with “disappointing” home loss:

Always a strong team at home, Pacific doesn’t tend to lose many matches at Starlight Stadium, and when they do, they’re usually close losses.

Because of that, it makes this loss such a statistical anomaly for them, as it was just the second time in their CPL history they’ve lost by three goal margin, with the other being a 3-0 loss to Halifax in the 2022 season.

Other than that, every other home game they’ve played as either seen them win or lose by two or less goals, doing well to keep matches close even if they go down early.

Yet, in this game, that didn’t end up being the case. Not only that, as Valour went up by a goal, Pacific struggled to find their rhythm, unable to put their guests under pressure as the game went on.

Ayman Sellouf did well to get involved, but he was unable to get a breakthrough, while forwards Adonijah Reid, Josh Heard, Devin O’Hea and Reon Moore didn’t get as many clearcut looks as they would’ve liked, especially in the later stages when it was O’Hea and Moore leading the line alongside Andrei Tîrcoveanu after Sellouf, Reid and Heard had all exited. Given that Pacific generated just three shots after the 61st minute just shows that, as they never really got going even as they entered desperation mode offensively.

That’ll frustrate Pacific, as that’s one thing they’ve always done well, which is to ensure they finish games strongly, giving them a chance at earning points even when they don’t deserve them.

They weren’t able to do that in this game, and that now puts them in an unfamiliar position, one they haven’t been in very often over the past few seasons – out of a playoff spot, now sitting in sixth place after this week.

“When we go down, it never looks like we’re ever out of the game,” Heard said afterwards. “And today, there were moments where we started to hang our heads, and we don’t have time for that. We can’t hang our heads, there are 13 games left, we’ve got everything to play for in front of us, and there’s no time to hang our heads, so we need to go back, regroup and attack the next week.”

The good news for them? They’re just one point behind fifth place, so it’s not as if they can’t quickly turn things around now.

Now, however, it feels like their biggest stretch of the season awaits, as they play three of their next four matches at home, while all five of their games are against the teams directly above them in the standings. They win a couple of those games, and they can vault right back into the mix, but a couple of losses could be lethal for their playoff hopes, pushing them further down the table.

As a result, there’s no better time than to hit the refresh button and focus on what’s ahead. Having amassed a record of 2W-3D-6L (9 PTS) in their last 11 after starting with a record of 3W-1D-0L (10 PTS) in their first four games, they’ll want to put this stretch behind them here.

For what it’s worth, this Pacific side has always done well to respond to adversity over the past few years. Now, this may be their most important run of games in a long time, and it’ll be fascinating to see how they respond to the challenge that awaits them.

“We got it wrong today in every way,” Pacific’s head coach, James Merriman, said. “I don’t know how, because the work that these guys put in every day (this weeK) has been excellent, and the attitude has been very good, but then we get to play in front of our home fans, and we don’t get to enjoy our football with our attacking or defending, that’s really disappointing and frustrating.”

He added: “We need to shift our focus and really fight for a playoff spot, as we always speak about wanting to win this league, but we need to start to show more fight, to play and to compete, because this is unacceptable, it’s a disappointing performance at home.”

Relentless Valour side finds long-awaited offensive outburst:

Not only did Valour score three goals for the first time all season, just days after scoring two goals in a game for just the fourth time in 15 games this season, they did so without any goals from Jordi Swibel, either, who has been their key source of offence up front, leading the team with five goals.

Now without a goal in his last six games, the goals have started to dry up for the Valour forward, who was one of the hottest strikers in the league at the end of May and beginning of June.

Yet, while it’s a run that Swibel will want to put behind him as he looks to vault back into the Golden Boot race, Valour will be pleased to see that other names have stepped up amid this good two-game stretch for Valour offensively.

Against Ottawa, it was a pair of surprising faces in midfielder Safwane Mlah, who had signed for the club just weeks ago out of Ligue 1 Québec side CS Saint-Laurent, and defender Gianfranco Facchineri, who scored his first goal for the club after getting picked up in the U SPORTS draft late last year.

This week, however, it was some more familiar faces who found the net in Antonoglou, Hundal and Binaté, however, given that Antonoglou has been a key contributor in 2024 with a co-CPL-leading five assists, while Hundal and Binaté have been two key pieces up front for Valour.

With that, it shows the sort of depth that Valour has in the attack, which doesn’t need to solely run through Swibel as it seemed to do earlier on, where the likes of Hundal and Binaté were struggling for form and confidence. Now, Valour’s starting to have a couple of different names who can step up and score, and it’s making a big difference for them.

Yet, that can be linked to a couple of factors.

First, there’s the creativity provided by Antonoglou and midfielder Diogo Ressurreição, who have done well to provide their forwards with chances to put away. Along with the recent addition of Mlah has more of an attack-minded box-to-box midfielder, that’s been key to helping jumpstart the attack.

Then, there’s the workrate provided by Swibel, who even when out of scoring form, makes sure to work tirelessly off the ball, which helps his teammates massively, helping create space for them to shine.

Lastly, there’s the fact that this team has gotten to build some chemistry, which is important because of all of those names mentioned, none of them were with the club last year, meaning they needed some time to find their feet as a group.

Now, they’ve started to build that chemistry, and it’s leading to more goals for Valour.

“I feel that every game we get our chances, and today we punished them for their mistakes,” Antonoglou said. “And that was a great feeling for me and the whole team.”

That’s huge, because already a team that tends to be quite solid defensively, they can now head into this stretch of home games and feel they have what it takes offensively to take advantage of some of their strong play at the back, much as they did in this Pacific match.

If they’re to indeed climb into the playoff picture, they’ll need to do that on a regular basis, so they’ll hope this recent two game stretch is a sign of what this offence can do when at their best going forward.

“I think that the team has shown that they can score from many different ways since the beginning of the season,” Dos Santos said. “I never doubted our ability to find goals, I think we have that in us, for us it was really finding a defensive stability and then having everything come together (from there).”

CanPL.ca Player of the Match

Themi Antonoglou, Valour FC

It was another active game offensively for Valour’s left back, who also combined it with a strong defensive shift to help his team keep the clean sheet and get the win.

That was reflected in the numbers, as he finished with a goal and an assist, one chance created, two shots, one dribble and six passes into the final third offensively, while chipping in with two tackles, three clearances, one interception, eight recoveries and six out of seven duels won defensively, putting together a complete performance at both ends.