“I only follow my voice inside

If it guides me wrong and I do not win

I’ll learn from mistakes and try 2 achieve again.”

Everything went according to plan for the defending champion Oakville Blue Devils on the opening day of the season against Toronto Skillz, coming out as comfortable 5 nil winners over the Scarborough team.

A large crowd was in attendance for the home opener on what was a warm but windy day. It started early and continued for most of the game, with wave after wave of attack from Oakville. They came close after just a couple minutes with a shot narrowly deflecting over the crossbar.

It didn’t take long before Oakville opened the scoring. The signs were there early on with Skillz losing possession of the ball in dangerous areas a couple times. Then, in the 9th minute, Mackenzy Kropa couldn’t control a pass from his midfield and was pounced upon immediately by Anthony Novak who went through unchallenged in goal and slotted a right footed shot past the keeper in to the right-hand side of the goal.

It was 2 nil just a couple of minutes later when Kropa tried to bring the ball out of defence but was again dispossessed by Filipe Vilela who drove towards goal and slid the ball in to Novak, who this time put the ball into the opposite corner.

Novak completed his hat-trick at 16 minutes when OBD worked the ball from left to right before Victor Gallo swung the ball into the box where both defender and attacker missed the ball completely and it fell to Novak at the back post. Novak was all alone, apart from the other OBD attacker, and had time to control the ball at the edge of the 6 yard box and blast a left footed shot into the roof of the net.

It was game over at 23 minutes when Zameer Mohammed was under pressure from Novak on the left side of the box. The ball bounced to Vilela who took on Mohammad on the outside and drove towards goal. Vilela brought the ball onto his right foot and curled it into the far corner.

OBD could have scored two or three more goals before the end of the half if it wasn’t for the post x2 and Skillz goalkeeper Peter Katsaras making a couple good saves.

Skillz didn’t really get into the half at all. I appreciated what they attempted to do, playing a 3-5-2 and playing the ball out of the back using a short passing game that looked good at times; but they didn’t really get anywhere with it. They would put a few passes together but eventually get swarmed by Oakville players and lose possession. All four first half goals came from defensive errors and I don’t think the tactics from Skillz were right for this game. They were outnumbered in defense multiple times, and there were huge gaps in midfield which they struggled to pass out of. Then when they turned over possession, it would be 4 or 5 Oakville players attacking the back 3 which usually led to a good chance.

Oakville, on the other hand, showed why they are the champs; they were very quick and had direct play carving the Skillz defence apart almost every time they attacked. But they couldn’t make all of their chances count; it could have been 8 nil at half time and that still may have been a fair score.

The Blue Devils scored their final goal soon after the break when a corner wasn’t cleared by the Skillz defence and fell to Brandon Duarte, again alone at the back post after drifting away from his marker who was ball watching. But what he did next was sublime, bringing the ball down and from a tight angle chipping the keeper at the back post. Well worth a watch.

From then on, I think Oakville took their foot off the gas a bit and lost some of the intensity they had to that point, allowing Sillz to get more into the game. Skillz also played a bit longer out of the back so that they weren’t caught in possession as often, however, they still didn’t create too many chances, with the best chance falling to forward Felix Ngha, who managed to get a clear chance on goal but his shot was saved by Matt George in the OBD net. Ngha impressed me, with a thankless task up top fighting for scraps, showing great pace, strength and footwork throughout. I hope he will be able to have a successful season. In fact, a few of the players looked good at times, looking comfortable on the ball and unafraid to get stuck into the older and bigger Oakville players. They should be commended on their second half effort.

It may seem weird saying that, as despite the improved second half from Skillz, they still let up a number of chances to Oakville, who really should have scored more. Skillz were saved by the post on a few more occasions and by Katsaras, who made four or five top drawer saves in the final 10 minutes.

This game went pretty much how I expected it to go in terms of scoreline, and probably should have been a bigger margin. I don’t think we can learn much about Oakville from this game other than that they will be contenders again. That said, I was impressed with the mentality of the Skillz team. They have a long way to go, but against a lesser team they could definitely cause some problems for the opposition and play an attractive style of football if only they could cut out those defensive mistakes and create a bit more up top.

Elsewhere around the league there were a lot of tight matches. Aurora got a good point at home, drawing 3-3 against a Masters team that would have been expecting to win. Last season’s top scorer for Masters Jose De Sousa managed a late equalizer after falling behind. New signings Rohann Ricketts and Cyrus Rollocks both got off the mark.

Also on Saturday Darby pulled off a surprise draw at home against last season’s finalists Woodbridge. In fact, it was only a last minute equalizer from Joshua Paredes-Proctor that rescued a point for the Strikers cancelling out Steven Furlano’s opener.

TFC V: London drew with their owners TFC III one a piece, with Shaan Hundal getting his first of the season. Patrick Melo levelled for the visitors.

Vaughan Azzurri somewhat surprisingly scrapped a 1 nil win over Sanjaxx at home. Shiquan Lowe getting the only goal of the game for the home team.

Unionville/Milliken got off to a good start in their debut season with a 3-1 win over Windsor TFC IV. Jamar Kelly had the sole goal for Windsor; Joseph Di Chiara, Tre Crosby and Hassan Abdulmumini, with the goals for the new boys.

Ryan Massoud, Dario Conte and Aidan Tuck put ProStars to the sword at the Ontario Soccer centre for OSU Force. Unfortunately, this might be another tough season for the ProStars. I really hope they can be more competitive this year.

Finally, North Mississauga beat the other debutantes Alliance United 1 nil with a goal at 30 minutes from Tristan Watson.

With one more team still to get going, Sigma start their season next weekend but here is how the current table looks:

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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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