Valour FC slipped to yet another loss at IG Field on Thursday night, as officiating errors marred a 17-year-old’s hometown hero’s spotlight.

Frustrating evenings at IG Field are becoming all too common for Rob Gale’s Valour FC, who fell to a 4th consecutive defeat in all competitions to Pacific FC on Thursday evening under the lights. Valour have been constantly changing things up during this Spring season, but whether it be formations, personnel, mentality, kits, goalkeepers, or opposition, no change seems to be helping Valour on the pitch.

Pacific FC on the other hand, were without a victory since their home opener prior to this match, but rallied together to overcome a beaten and bruised Valour side who are extremely short on confidence at the moment.

Valour lined up in the 4-2-3-1 that they seem to be sticking with, with Attardo and Pena getting their first starts. Janssens also made his 5th start of the season in all competitions, as he aims to win the starting spot.

Pacific FC lined up with a relatively unorthodox 4-1-4-1 which was extremely difficult to read throughout the match. The front 5 in particular, along with the full-backs, were constantly interchanging and causing headaches for the opposition (and us analysts!).

Valour lined up with their usual 4-2-3-1, but utilized a conservative mentality, rather than the possession-based, high-intensity style we’ve become used to seeing.

There was a vastly different feel to Valour FC on Thursday night, in what was their 8th match of the Canadian Premier League season and 10th in all competitions. Instead of maintaining possession and aiming to win the ball back high up the pitch through efficient pressing, Rob Gale’s side sat back for the majority of the first half, conceding possession to Pacific FC and dropping into a 4-4-2 off the ball.

“They weren’t going anywhere with it, honestly” said Gale, when asked about why he allowed his side to concede the majority of the possession to the west coast side. “Were they going to hurt us with that possession? We didn’t think so”.

A visual of Valour’s 4-4-2 when out of possession

While the strategy of conceding possession did not quite work in the overall context of the match, it certainly made sense for Attardo and Pena, 2 young Winnipeggers who started on the flanks today – both possess impressive speed, which was certainly beneficial to Valour on the counter-attack.

17-year-old Tyler Attardo made a massive impact in the match despite it being his first ever start in professional football. Throughout his time on the pitch he was lively, intelligent, and dangerous, and him scoring a bullet header to level the match in first-half stoppage time is a moment that will inspire young Winnipeggers for years to come.

The first goal Valour conceded was a soft one, as a tame cross which should have been dealt with by Diego Gutierrez was scored quite easily by an unmarked Blasco at the back post. Turns out, Gutierrez expected the cross to come to the near post and made the split second decision to make the run toward it, but alas, the ball went clean over his head toward Blasco.

While it often seems misguided to blame officiating for losses, Valour certainly were left scratching their heads as to what happened in the follow-up to the match-winner from Pacific. Glenn Muenkat entered the playing field as a sub following Gutierrez’s injury, but the referee signaled for him to go back to the touchline and await the next whistle for some unexplained reason, and Valour were left with 10 men for the next few minutes – a time period where Terran Campbell would score the winner.

Once again however, the story was very similar for Valour despite the personnel and tactical changes – they simply could not score the goals required to win the match. The shot count was 19-9 in their favour, but they only managed to put 2 of them on target, whilst Pacific put 5 of their 9 on target. This has been frustrating the home side all season long, as they look to finally find a match where the floodgates open, and players start to find some confidence.

Pacific FC picked up a much needed win in a tough atmosphere, and based off of their formation, they trusted themselves to do exactly that from the start.

With the thinnest squad in the league and a vast spectrum of ages on the roster, this Pacific side have had a topsy-turvy Spring season, just like their opponents. With victory eluding them since the opening match, Michael Silberbauer clearly saw this fixture as an extremely winnable one, and that’s exactly what this young Pacific side went out and achieved on Thursday.

Despite being the away side playing against a team who thrives on the ball, Pacific’s starting XI displayed plenty of attacking intent, and so did their first-half play. Marcus Haber up top acted as the focal-point as he always does, but the 4 players behind him, Blasco, Verhoeven, Hojabrpour, and Campbell acted as a young but menacing quadruple-headed spear that interchanged with each other all night long, causing headaches for the Valour midfield and backline.

While Marcus Haber had a quiet night in terms of his own scoring chances, his presence was the reason Pacific were able to score the opening goal of the match. As I mentioned earlier, the Valour right-back Gutierrez ran to the near post in anticipation of the cross – this was actually because Haber was inside the box being marked by Mitter only, and a ball to the near post would have been reached by the target man without a doubt. Gutierrez understood the impact that Haber makes in the box and made a darting run to double-team him, but this ultimately backfired as the cross went over all of them and to a wide open Blasco.

Haber also caused problems for Valour in other ways, constantly making diagonal runs between their defenders in order to latch onto long-balls sent through from his deeper teammates.

Pacific’s full-backs also galloped up the pitch regularly, with Blake Smith on the left in particular dropping into the half-space, allowing Blasco to stick to the touchline. On the right hand side, Campbell was the one dropping inside, interchanging with Noah Verhoeven, and Kadin Chung stuck to the touchline.

Terran Campbell set the bar high in this match, picking out Blasco on the first goal and scoring the 2nd beautifully on his own, in what was a match-winning performance from the 20-year-old.

Valour FC Player Ratings:

Mathias Janssens – 7 – Couldn’t do much about either goal and did well when called upon. Diego Gutierrez – 6.5 – Intentions on the first goal were clear, but it still goes down as a mistake. Did well to grab the assist for Attardo’s goal. Adam Mitter – 7 – Another very solid performance at the back. Jordan Murrell – 7.5 – Did well with and without the ball. A relatively faultless display. Martin Arguinarena – 6.5 – Was caught in no mans land on the first goal, and passed the ball poorly by his standards, toward the end of the match. Louis Beland-Goyette – 7.5 – Superb, discipline performance. Raphael Ohin – 7.5 – Once again brought the much needed energy and tenacity into midfield. Federico Pena – 7 – Didn’t fare too poorly on his first start, but didn’t excel either. Marco Bustos – 6.5 – Very disappointing performance. One-footedness was frustrating at times, especially in his clear-cut 2nd half chance. Tyler Attardo – 8 – Star of the show for Valour. Played well as an outlet in possession and took his goal brilliantly. Ali Musse – 7 – Did well in possession but was hardly there when the team needed their centre-forward in the final 3rd. SUB – Dylan Carreiro – 6.5 – Showed glimpses after coming on but ultimately couldn’t quite make an impact. SUB – Glenn Muenkat – 7 – Pretty quiet performance after coming on. SUB – Calum Ferguson – 7 – Showed great work ethic and intent in the final 15 minutes, but couldn’t bring the physical impact required to make the difference.

Pacific FC Player Ratings:

Mark Village – 7 – Nearly gifted Ohin a goal with a loose touch in the 2nd half, but made a crucial save on Bustos as well. Kadin Chung – 7 – Got up and down the right-hand side very well. Lukas MacNaughton – 6.5 – Probably could have done a little better on Valour’s goal. Matthew Baldisimo – 7 – Very solid performance, contributed on both sides of the ball. Blake Smith – 7.5 – Caused plenty of issues for Valour with his unpredictable runs from left-back. Alex Gonzalez – 7.5 – Did his job of dictating play and anchoring the possession to perfection. Alessandro Hojabrpour – 7 – Relatively average performance from the midfielder, who didn’t stand out. Noah Verhoeven – 7 – Caused problems for Valour with his lateral movement between the lines, but didn’t show the quality he so often does. Terran Campbell – 8.5 – Had a breakout performance, put up a goal and an assist while looking dangerous all evening from the right side, and later up front. Victor Blasco – 8 – Took his goal well and combined nicely with Smith on the left. Marcus Haber – 6.5 – His presence created the first goal, but other than that, he offered essentially nothing. SUB – Ben Fisk – 6.5 – Got an entire half to impress, but didn’t quite show enough quality in the final third. SUB – Emile Legault – 7 – Played a very solid 30 minutes, but didn’t particularly stand out. SUB – Jose Hernandez – 7 – Played just 15 minutes but was an attacking threat throughout his time on the field.

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Mahith Gamage Website An avid football fan right from his first experiences with the sport, Mahith Gamage has been dabbling in football journalism for a few years now, creating his own world football blog and podcast, freeflow football, whilst featuring frequently on many other football media outlets, covering European football. With the start of the Canadian Premier League in 2019, Mahith began coverage of his hometown club, Valour FC, through NSXI. He enjoys spreading his knowledge and opinions of the beautiful game to fellow football fanatics in Canada and throughout the world, using articles and tweets, thriving particularly on tactical analysis and player scouting. You can find him tweeting about world football day and night, at @mahithgamage.

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