Article content continued

“The first week is about us getting fit and getting to know each other,” said new midfielder Jonny Steele. “Last year, I think the chemistry was one of the massive things toward them going on a run to the championship game. When you have that chemistry, you fight for each other, you fight for every ball. You don’t have to worry if somebody’s going to cover for you in a game. You know your teammates are going to be there for you as teammates on the field and friends off the field.”

Plenty of familiar faces – including Richie Ryan, Sinisa Ubiparipovic, Tommy Heinemann, Ryan Richter, Nicki Patterson, Oliver, Drew Beckie and coach Marc Dos Santos – are gone. But the new guys are hoping to pick up just where the 2015 version of the team left off. The team has an added bonus, with the early arrival of former Liverpool midfielder and Real Madrid youth product Gerardo Bruna, once hailed as the “next Lionel Messi.” There are still a couple of players missing. Paulo Jr. is waiting for his visa, while Onua Thomas Obasi is still playing in the indoor season.

Dalglish is confident Fury FC can make big strides in the 2016 season, which, for Ottawa, begins April 3 in New York.

“The standard of the players we brought in speaks for itself,” said Dalglish. “We’ve got better players this year than we had last year, no doubt in my mind.

“When players make it clear they want to leave because they can earn more money somewhere else, that’s life. It’s like any job in the world. If someone offers you a lot more money to do the same job in the same league, you’d be mad not to want to take it. These are family guys. When they decided they wanted to go, we had to make sure we looked after our family, which is Ottawa Fury. We got the most amount of compensation we could.