2025 CPL Regular Season — Match #3
Pacific FC vs. Valour FC
April 5 at 5 p.m. PT/7 p.m. CT
Starlight Stadium in Langford, British Columbia
Watch Live: OneSoccer // Tickets available here

Following busy off-seasons, Pacific FC and Valour FC will show off their new-look teams at Starlight Stadium on Saturday evening, as they get set to face off in the last game of a Saturday triple-header on CPL’s opening weekend. 

Coming off 2024 campaigns that fell short of expectations for both sides, they’re looking to take a big step forward this season and push into the top half of the table, with the goal being to turn their successful off-seasons in the transfer market into strong campaigns on the pitch. 

To begin, there’s Pacific, who aren’t just looking to improve on last year, but are also looking to return to past heights, as they try and forget a campaign that fell below their lofty standards. For many teams, a playoff appearance and a deep Canadian Championship run would be plenty to celebrate, but for a Pacific team that has won the 2021 North Star Cup, they’ll feel frustrated that they’ve now gone three straight seasons without silverware since that triumph.

Not only that, but they’ve been trending in the wrong direction each year, too, finishing fourth in the regular season table with 46 points in 2022, fourth with 40 points in 2023, and fifth with 34 points in 2024.

RELATED: 2025 CPL Season Preview: Pacific FC || Healthy again, Josh Heard excited to lead rejuvenated Pacific to past heights: ‘Ready to take that next step’

Therefore, even though they’ve lost a few key leaders, they feel confident in their ability to return to their usual standard, one where they expect to win every match they play, starting with this opener. 

“You always want to have a strong start to build off of, especially when we’re at home in front of our fans,” Pacific head coach James Merriman said ahead of this match. “We want to give them a good impression. Most importantly, though, we’re focusing on ourselves – we know the things that we’re trying to do with and without all the ball, and that’s what we need to see tomorrow because it’s a long season.”

Meanwhile, for Valour, they’d love nothing more than to taste the postseason, remaining without any playoff appearances in their six-year existence. Having come closest to doing so in 2021, when they missed the postseason by one point, it feels like this season will be about getting over the hump and snapping that playoff drought. Certainly, their off-season moves have reflected that ambition — not only did they target several high-calibre players at key positions, but also added significant CPL experience to their group through the likes of Rocco Romeo, Zachary Fernandez and Kris Twardek — showing that they truly mean business. 

Now, however, they’ll have to put it together on the pitch. It can be easy to have a strong offseason and still come up short of expectations, so look for Valour to now back up their ambition with results.

RELATED: 2025 CPL Season Preview: Valour FC || Goal-hungry Shaan Hundal eager to help Valour finally bring the playoffs to Winnipeg

“The preseason has been good for us,” Valour’s head coach Phil Dos Santos said this week. “I don’t look so much at results, but I look at the response of the players, the way we want to play and the ideas that we put forward, and they were out there embracing that. That’s the most exciting part for me, seeing their buy-in, seeing the collective commitment that they’ve shown, and that hunger and desire to achieve something together.”

In terms of roster availability for this match, Pacific will be missing goalkeeper Sean Melvin and midfielder Aidan Daniels, who are both dealing with small knocks, as well as Emmanuel Montejano, who had a delayed arrival into Pacific’s camp following his signing.

Meanwhile, Valour might be without Dante Campbell, who is a doubt for this game, and will definitely be without Zachary Fernandez due to a suspension, as well as head coach Phil Dos Santos, who is serving a three-game ban of his own to start the season.

All CPL matches will be broadcast live on OneSoccer, available as a linear channel on Telus’ Optik TV (Channel 980) as well as online at OneSoccer.ca, through the OneSoccer app and on the fuboTV Canada platform.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

• Pacific aims to entertain in possession once again: It’s no secret – Pacific struggled to score last year. With a league-low 27 goals in 28 league games (and none in their lone playoff appearance), it was a tough year for the Tridents offence, which has usually been a strength of this team. Because of that, look for goals to be a big priority of this team early on. Between returnees such as Dario Zanatta, who caught fire at the end of 2024 after a slow start, and Josh Heard, who can chip in with goals but dealt with injuries last season, as well as new arrivals such as Marco Bustos, Ronan Kratt, Emmanuel Montejano and Aidan Daniels, it feels like this team can find the goals that felt elusive for them last year. For what it’s worth, though, Pacific’s success in this area won’t necessarily be down to individual play, but their collective approach, too. For their struggles offensively last year, they were quite good defensively, as they put a lot of their attention towards being good without the ball. This year, they’ll need to find a balance between keeping that defensive solidity, especially after having lost some key names at the back, while still tweaking the attack enough to give freedom for their attackers to find goals. It won’t be an easy balance to strike, but it’s one that contending teams tend to do – you’ve got to be good at both ends of the pitch to push for titles, and 2024 Pacific lacked production in the attacking side. “We’ve scored a lot of goals in preseason, but that’s preseason,” Merriman said. “The most important thing right now is that we can create chances, that we have that aggressive personality in the final third, that we want to go to goal, create chances, are brave enough to take players on in 1v1 situations, and feel strong and confident in front of goal.”

• Can Valour improve their road record? When reflecting upon what ailed them in 2024, one big area that will stand out for Valour is their record away from Princess Auto Stadium, as they claimed just 11 points from 14 road games, winning only two of those matches. A big reason for that? Their defensive play, as they conceded 26 goals in those matches, which was joint-most in the league with the Halifax Wanderers (who had the worst road record). Because of that, look for Valour to be much more solid defensively away from home, starting with this match. For what it’s worth, they’ll have some confidence in starting their 2025 slate of road games at Starlight Stadium – one of their two road victories in 2024 came against Pacific, who they beat 3-0 last July. In that game, they put together nearly the perfect template road performance, earning their lone road clean sheet with a strong defensive showing, while chipping in with some timely goals. Can they repeat something similar this time around? They’ll certainly hope so, as they feel they’ve got the group to make road results like that a regular occurrence. “When you look at the characteristics of the guys that we brought in, I feel that it’s all players that have blood in the eyes,” Dos Santos said. “Guys that appreciate the daily process, guys that have been in the game for a bit and know that nothing’s going to be given to you.”

• Which new faces will impress early? One big thing to watch early on in the season? How quickly both teams will be able to integrate their new signings, given that they’ll be expecting some big things from their new arrivals early on. Interestingly, both have brought back players who are familiar with their clubs – Pacific’s Marco Bustos and Kadin Chung were both part of the team’s 2021 North Star Cup-winning outfit and each spent several seasons on Vancouver Island, while Valour’s Rocco Romeo had a prior stint at the club – so look for those three to feature prominently for their teams early on. Along with those who have come to their new teams with CPL experience, such as Pacific’s Ronan Kratt, Aidan Daniels and Matteo Schiavoni, and Valour’s Kris Twardek, Zachary Fernandez and Kelsey Egwu, those names will also expect to hit the ground running. The wildcards, however, will be the other new arrivals – Pacific’s Max Anchor, Pedro Machado, Lukas Browning Lagerfeldt, Daniel de Pauli and Emanuel Montejano will hope for swift integration into the team, and the same goes for Valour’s Bruno Figueiredo, Xavier Venâncio, Erik Pop and Myles Morgan. After big offseasons, finding a way to integrate these names as swiftly as possible will be the big challenge, as it can sometimes be hard to hit the ground running when turning over the roster as much as both teams have.

PROJECTED STARTING XIs

Pacific FC: Anchor; Chung, Machado, Ndom, Mukumbilwa; Browning Lagerfeldt, Young, de Pauli; Bustos, Kratt, Heard

Valour FC: Viscosi; Alarcón, Romeo, Facchineri, Antonoglou; Ohin, Ressurreição; Twardek, Faria; Hundal, Williams

ALL-TIME SERIES

Pacific FC wins: 16 || Valour FC wins: 4 || Draws: 3

Last meeting:

Sept. 30, 2024 — Valour FC 1-0 Pacific FC

KEY QUOTES

“We want to be on the ball. We always want to be setting the tempo and controlling matches, especially here at Starlight Stadium. We want to be in control of games, we want to be aggressive, on the front foot and want to try and keep teams in their own half, then we want to create chances and score goals. I think you can expect us to be more on the front foot to start games (in 2025).” — Pacific FC head coach James Merriman

“I’m looking forward to playing with my new teammates, we get a lot of preseason games (together), but you can’t compare that to when the stadium is full and there’s a good opponent, it’s going to be a fight, and I’m excited about that. Also, playing in front of our fans, friends and family is going to be quite special.” — Pacific FC forward Josh Heard

“It’s easy for us to come out and say that this club has to be in the playoffs – yes, this club needs to achieve something we haven’t achieved yet, that’s the easy way of putting it. I think that for us to do that, however, we need to take care of every weekend, we need to go one day at a time, we need to be the best version of ourselves in every game, and then everything else will fall in place. For us, it’s not looking too far ahead, it’s not looking ahead 28 matches, it’s about looking at the next opponent and believing that we have everything we need to come here and start the season by winning matches.” — Valour FC head coach Phil Dos Santos

“I think this year we’re going to have a lot of multiple goalscorers. That’s what’s going to make up a good team. I’m excited to get started and be ready for the chances I get. I know this year that I’ll get a lot more chances than I did last year, so it’s just about being ready to put them in the back of the net, even if that means not being involved in the game for the whole 90 minutes, I know that I’m going to get chances, and I’ve just got to be ready and sharp to put them into the back of the net.” — Valour FC forward Shaan Hundal