2022 CPL Regular Season — Match #75
HFX Wanderers vs. Valour FC
August 12, 2022 at 3:00 pm AT/1:00 pm CT
Wanderers Ground in Halifax, Nova Scotia
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It’s a meeting that could very well determine the playoff fate of a few teams.

On Saturday afternoon in Halifax, the HFX Wanderers will host Valour FC at Wanderers Ground, a matchup where the playoff fate of three teams lies in the balance, showing the importance of this matchup. 

With Valour continuing a late-summer surge, winning five of their last eight games, allowing them to sit just five points off the playoff spot, they come into this game clearly feeling themselves based on how things have gone for them lately. 

Meanwhile, the Wanderers are in a pretty much opposite situation, as they enter this game winless in their last six matches, losing five of those matches, many of them in frustrating fashion. 

“Everybody knows the situation,” Wanderers manager, Stephen Hart, said this week. “We’ve been working really hard as a staff, myself and the players to try and get that balance right. We weren’t happy with the result of the last game, but the performance was a lot better, and we would like to take that into the next game and certainly the training this week has shown that from the players.”

RELATED: CanPL.ca Newsroom: Valour’s big week, Ballou shines in the storm & Forge stay hot (ft. Phil Dos Santos) | Gatorade Team of the Week (Week 18)

Yet, despite the contrasting form of these two teams, eight points is all that separates these sides, which might seem like a lot, but considering that this is a six-point game, that does mean that gap isn’t as big as it seems. 

For example, if the Wanderers are to snatch a win, they’d all of a sudden be just five points away from Valour, giving them hope of being able to pass them, while also putting a halt to Valour’s surprise playoff push. 

Of course, that equation plays both ways, as a Valour victory could very well bury the Wanderers (and trailing York) from having any hope of making the playoffs, as it’d create an 11-point gap between the two sides, but that’s just the reality of a six-point game, which is why they’re always fun to watch. 

“We’re very, very we’re aware of that,” Valour’s head coach, Phil Dos Santos, said of the importance of this six-point match. “We know that three points in Halifax would be huge for us, as we come back and play at home afterwards, so I think that every time you could pick three points and get on a roll where where you win multiple games in a row, especially with the teams at the top all playing each other this weekend, meaning that we could win three points over a couple of those teams this weekend, it’s huge for us.”

“So we need to just accept the responsibility.”

Therefore, as the climax of this 2022 campaign nears, this game is worth keeping an eye on, as it could prove to be very crucial in the context of what’s still to come in league play. 

Considering how close these two teams tend to play each other, with just one win separating them in their all-time series, is exciting, as that could lead to a very competitive matchup, one not to miss. 

Make your match picks prior to kickoff at canpl.ca/predictor for a chance to win prizes, including the grand prize of a trip to the 2022 CPL Final! To learn more about ComeOn!, click here.

All CPL matches are available to stream on OneSoccer, or on TELUS Optik TV Channel 980.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Wanderers eager to recapture once-stellar home form: If the Wanderers are to grab a result, one big thing for them to focus on? Recapturing their home form, once one of the best in the league, something that just hasn’t been the case this season. For whatever reason, despite playing in front of the biggest and loudest crowds in the league every time they play at home, that hasn’t translated to much success at Wanderers Ground for Halifax, who have picked up just eight points in eight home games this year, tied for last in the league. Because of that, they’ll be eager to refind that once-stellar form, pronto, as six of their last 10 games will be played at home, giving them an opportunity to make up for those earlier shortcomings. That’d be huge, because as Hart made sure to note, the fans deserve as much, especially considering the loyalty they show by coming in large numbers each week to support their local side. “It would be great,” Hart said of his team winning at home. “The fans are certainly deserving, and the players certainly deserve it, to at least bring that little bit of hope that we can make as good of push as the teams above us are.”

• Valour just trying to keep winning formula intact: Over the course of their last two games, which were two big 2-0 home wins over Cavalry and York, we got a glimpse of something that Valour has gotten quite good at lately – winning the Valour way. What might the Valour way be, one might ask? Well, as Dos Santos did a good job of explaining post-York game, it’s about defending well, working hard off the ball, and then being as efficient as possible in both boxes. From there, if you can execute those tasks to the maximum of your capacity, that gives you a pretty good shot at winning, something that these last two games showed. Therefore, look for them to maintain that formula as they get set for this wounded Wanderers’ side. Led by whoever starts in goal, be it Jonathan Sirois or Rayane Yesli, and then pushing up the field from there, starting with Andrew Jean-Baptiste at the back and finishing with Moses Dyer and Sean Rea in the attack, Valour will lean on their key pieces to impose their way of playing once again, allowing them to pick up what would be a monumental road victory in their hunt towards the playoffs. Knowing that they can close the gap between them and the top four to potentially two points if results around them go their way, they’ll know what’s at stake, and come out as such in this one, as they look to continue their late summer surge. “We must stay equal to who we are,” Dos Santos confidently stated. “We must be ourselves, because that’s what we work for, that’s the identity we are building with the team in how we train, so as soon as we start deviating from it, I think we’ll find ourselves in a gray zone, and that’s where mistake start to happen, where you start losing a little bit of control.”

• Wanderers looking to snap low-scoring ways: Meanwhile, as Valour looks to continue and execute their well-defined game plan, the Wanderers are just trying to get back to basics for this game. The biggest of priorities for them? Finding a way to score goals again, as entering this game, they’ve been shut out four times in their last six games, having scored three goals in the 540 minutes that they’ve played since a shock 3-0 road win over Pacific in June. Yet, that shows how tough things have been for the Wanderers as of late, who just can’t seem to catch a break offensively. Because of that, returning to the basics offensively is going to be key for Hart’s side, who know that despite the ongoing absence João Morelli, they’re better than this recent run shows. With a true dangerman in Sam Salter, who despite a recent dry spell, still sits in the top five of league scoring, and surrounded by the likes of Cory Bent, Aidan Daniels and 2020 Golden Boot winner Akeem Garcia, the talent is there, but it’s all about finding a way to put it together out on the field. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened enough, other than flashes, but there’d certainly be no better time for them to do this than now, especially in a game like this one. “I think last game away from home, we created 10 chances, and the opposition created five, but what we gave up what was very much a preventable goal,” Hart said. “We just weren’t strong enough or aggressive enough, but we certainly had the chances to convert and we just didn’t hit the target. So we’re focusing on that, and at some point, we’re going to get it right.”

ALL-TIME SERIES

Valour wins: 5 || HFX Wanderers wins: 6 || Draws: 2

Previous match:

July 10, 2022 — Valour FC 1-0 HFX Wanderers

KEY QUOTES

“We know that we’ve played some games and lost a few that we should have come away from with a better result. But we also know that we have to accept the responsibility, that we did not get the result. All credit to the players, though, they haven’t dropped their heads, they still have each other’s back, and they’ve been working very hard to try and get that balance right, so we would like to turn that around tomorrow.” — HFX Wanderers manager, Stephen Hart

“The group is well, the group has confidence, it’s not only been about the results but also the performances. We haven’t been perfect, but we’ve been solid in the last few games, and the group is aware of that. But we also understand that we need to stay humble and do the little things that matter in order to keep things as they are now. It’s a very difficult game that we have on the weekend, and we’ll need to be to be sharp to win.” — Valour FC manager Phil Dos Santos.