Having the best-laid plans doesn’t always lead to success.
You can build what you think is a balanced roster in pre-season, but imperfections tend to rear their head during the regular season.
Whether your team is hit by injury problems, or players you were banking on don’t hit the mark, coaches often have to tweak their squads with mid-season recruits.
But bringing in a new player in the middle of the campaign isn’t always a bad thing. Often times a newcomer can spur a club to new heights, giving his team a much needed spark. More than a few CPL teams benefited from a mid-season pickup, but which newcomer topped the charts?
The CanPL.ca editorial team of John Molinaro, Armen Bedakian, Marty Thompson and Charlie O’Connor-Clarke debate who was the best mid-season acquisition in 2019.
Check out their picks below.
Bedakian: Alexander Gonzalez (Pacific FC)
No one single player added as dynamic an element to his new team as Alexander Gonzalez did for Pacific FC.
Was he the flashiest player in Pacific’s midfield? Of course not. But, while his work wasn’t pretty, it was pretty effective. His was a utility that Pacific lacked; the sort of bite in the middle of the park that gave the rest of the Pacific midfielders some relief in certain zones. Avoiding Gonzalez’s nipping studs was mandatory for opposition players, after all. It’s a good weapon to have, especially if he’s good at keeping the yellow and red cards to a minimum, too.
(Which, Gonzalez was).
Will he stick around next season? It remains to be seen. Losing Gonzalez would certainly be a shame for the club if they can’t retain his services for 2020. But, Gonzalez’s ability to change Pacific’s midfield from a young, raw, technically-sound but somewhat-disjointed engine that could be walked through into a tough battling ground can’t be overstated.
Thompson: David Edgar (Forge FC)
As Forge FC coach Bobby Smyrniotis rightly said, his club “took a gamble” adding David Edgar and dropping Emery Welshman in early August.
Welshman was sold by his parent club, FC Cincinnati, after a strong early season as Hamilton’s consistent, do-everything centre-forward. Instead of grabbing another attacker, Forge went to shore up the back line.
In retrospect, Forge needed a player like Edgar: a massive body, English Premier League experience, and brimming with leadership ability.
It started with the away Concacaf League matches (Edgar had lots of experience playing in Central America with the Canadian men’s national team) and ending on Nov. 2, with Forge capturing the North Star Shield.
The 32-year-old was exactly what the doctor ordered for a Forge team that showed cracks in defence to start the season. Without Edgar, Forge is not winning Finals 2019 — his second leg was an outstanding defensive performance good enough, for me, to earn man of the match.
A first-year mid-season pickup leading to a championship? How can you not pick Edgar?!
O’Connor Clarke: Duran Lee (HFX Wanderers FC)
Let’s be real, the answer is David Edgar.
But, for argument’s sake, there’s a case to be made for Duran Lee. The Wanderers were left with a massive hole at the back of their lineup when they found out Peter Schaale would be returning to Cape Breton University in August.
So, they called on Lee, the 24-year-old who’d stared them down as a member of Vaughan Azzurri in the Canadian Championship earlier in the season. Of course, he was never going to fully replace such a fan favourite, but Lee was as solid as you could’ve asked for in his stint in Halifax.
Lee made eight appearances for the Wanderers, helping them to a win and five draws over that span. He helped steady their back line, earning a pair of clean sheets and conceding just once in three of his other starts.
HFX’s Fall season kind of petered out with a string of low-scoring draws, but with the offence drying up, Lee did pretty much everything asked of him. He wasn’t flashy, and he didn’t help Forge’s already-steady back line to a championship like Edgar did, but he was an admirable replacement for Schaale.
Molinaro: Michele Paolucci (Valour FC)
It’s fair to say Valour FC stumbled through the Spring campaign.
The Winnipeg-based club finished dead last in the table with a 3-7-0 record, while boasting the worst attack in the league (a meagre eight goals scored in 10 games).
The writing was on the wall ahead of the Fall season, and coach Rob Gale knew he had to do something to jumpstart his team. Enter Michele Paolucci, who signed with the club in mid-July and immediately breathed a bit of life into Valour’s stagnant attack.
The veteran Italian striker proved to be a genuine workhorse for Valour down the season’s homestretch, appearing in 15 games and accumulating 1,140 minutes of playing time. He also managed to score three goals and added two assists to the Valour cause. More importantly, he provided Gale’s team with some badly-needed leadership on the pitch
“Number one, you can look at his resume and his history, and for us, it’s adding his leadership and experience, goal-scoring record and all those factors,” Gale said when he signed Paolucci.
“But what became very clear in talking to Michele is he was hungry for this opportunity. He feels that he can continue to improve in his game… and he’s here to help the younger players.”