“And it’s like stars have aligned all in Alliance

Heart of a lion, balls of Goliath”

Ok….. I know, I know. I’ve been away and missed the first month of the season, my bad. But as the saying goes, semi informational and questionably entertaining things come to those who wait.

What’s new?

Well, what hasn’t changed? Sanjaxx are gone, which sucks for me as both the downtown clubs (Nitros), have quit the league in the last two years meaning travelling to every ground is now a hassle. But the ying to that yang is that Durham are back after taking a couple of years out. TFC3 also left but that happened mid last season, so all this means that there are 16 teams in the men’s league this year and they all play each other once before the top 8 go into the playoffs.

The playoffs were fun last year, with the best teams going up against each other, there were shocks and disappointments so I expect more of the same this year as well.

Plenty of players have left to ply their trade in the CPL, a lot of which have started out very well, so lineups for specifically Sigma and Vaughan have changed drastically. Aurora have signed up half of the Humber college alumni, including Oakville stalwart Filipe Vilela, and N. Mississauga have also had a lot of change in their squad.

As for this column, it won’t be coming weekly as in the past but once or twice a month rounding up the action, then with additional insights and interviews sporadically to try to add more value and exposure. So to the action on the field, what are the highlights of the season so far….

Alliance United topping the table

Nope, it’s not alphabetical order, after 1/3 of the regular season, a solid looking Alliance are on top of the pile. Whilst they are yet to face any of the traditionally ‘big’ teams, Ilya Orlov, in his second season in charge, has set up his team well with a strong base in defence using mostly the same players from last year. They are yet to concede a goal this season showing they are well disciplined at the back and especially on the road where they play a little safer and deeper with more long diagonals earning two 1 nil wins and an 0-0. At home, they are a little bit more expansive, winning 4-0 and 3-0, albeit against the two worst teams in the league. They have two home games coming up against Aurora and N.Miss that will be a good test of where they are as a team.

ProStars start well

I’m not entirely sure what is happening here. This is the team that hasn’t finished outside of the bottom three, ever. They’ve won 3 games in 2 years. After 4 games in 2019, they have already got 2 wins and 60% of the points they won last season and 150% of the points from 2017. Last season they brought in head coach Indrit Fortuzi who seems to be finally making an impact on his team. Like Alliance, they have mainly the same squad as last season but have added a few key pieces, with goalkeeper Christian Campanico and outfielders Jonathan D’Aguilar, who made the original cut at the Toronto CPL trials, Mikel Garrick and Sebastian Amaya. They are yet to lose a game and the standout performance came at home to Sigma where they came back from 1 nil down to win 3-2. I’m sure they will drop a few places but if they can be in a position to fight for a playoff spot at the end of the season, that would be an exceptional season.

Vaughan looking good

Vaughan have had an exciting start to the season. They are sitting nicely in second place coming off a 4-1 win at Oakville. They have scored 4 goals in three of their five games this year, with a 3-0 win over Skillz and a 2-1 loss to Sigma on the opening day being their other results. They don’t seem to have lost a step since losing 5-6 starters during the off season. They’ve added David Velastegui and Duran Lee from Sigma, as well as the returning Maksym Kowal from Europe and Sameer Fathazada from Skillz, and they’ve all fitted in perfectly into the lineup.

But most impressively, they put in two great performances in the Voyageurs Cup against Halifax Wanderers. I gave them no chance when it was announced thinking that the professional outfit that boasts one of their ex-players would easily beat the amateur team. It looked like it would go that way when Halifax went up 2 nil but Vaughan fought back with goals from Whiteman and Raposo – both of which could probably play in CPL, if Raposo doesn’t choose MLS – to give them a chance, but Halifax won and scored a penalty in added on time. Vaughan even won the second leg 1-0 on the east coast, but it wasn’t enough, as the Wanderers got through on away goals. But that was certainly a big win for the league, showing that they can mix it in the V Cup.

Ups and downs

Aurora and N.Miss have had a lot of positive turnover in their teams over the winter, including in the dugout. The results seemed to have improved with it. They both missed out on the playoffs last season but will be expecting to make it this year.

N.Miss have 2 draws and 2 wins from their four games. They are still struggling to score goals like last season, but have scored once in each of their games – last season they scored 15 times in 16 games. Crucially, they only conceded in two of the games which is also an improvement over last season.

Aurora, on the other hand, are averaging 2 goals a game and are almost halfway towards their last seasons points total. They still concede a fair amount making them a fun team to watch

Woodbridge and Unionville Milliken have both lost large amounts of their teams from last season and their results show it. Woodbridge have 2 wins in the opening 5 games, against Windsor and Skillz. They seem to be one of the teams fighting for one of the final couple spots in the playoffs.

UM, on the other hand, have not yet got a win, and drawn twice. I think they might miss out this year but this weekend vs Skillz could be a good place to start to turn things around.

By the Numbers

I believe any of the top 11 could potentially make the playoffs, with the huge squad turnovers making big changes to how the league could look this season. This is great for the excitement of the league as there shouldn’t be too many thrashings like there have been in previous years. The table will take more of a shape in the next month when we can re-evaluate, but for now, it’s tight.

Maybe it’s a quirk of the fixtures, and without a balanced schedule we can’t know, but the away team has won 50% of the games so far. Home wins have only occurred 34% of the time.

If Sigma concede this weekend against Windsor……lol, ok, if they concede the week after against Darby, they would have conceded 9 goals. The same amount they conceded in the 2018 regular season.

#TomorrowsStarsToday

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Dan Baldwin Dan joins us to finally get involved in doing something about the sport he loves. Born in England he has played and followed the game his whole life. After moving to Toronto in 2014, he immediately began to learn about the local soccer scene and is passionate about the development of the sport in the country. However, he can still found cheering on his beloved West Ham each weekend morning at the Dog and Bear pub.

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