As Valour FC look to climb to new heights in 2025, they’ve brought back a mountain of a man from their past to aid in the ascent.
On Tuesday, Valour announced the signing of 24-year-old towering central defender Rocco Romeo to a contract for the 2025 season, with a club option for 2026.
Two years since leaving the Prairies, Romeo returns to the city and club he knows well and reunites with head coach Phil Dos Santos, whom he calls more of a mentor than a coach.
“For [Phil] to put that trust and belief and faith in me, to come back and see where my head was at with the project and direction, where Valour wants to go, it just seemed the best option for me,” said Romeo.
Romeo initially joined Valour midway through the 2021 season, on loan from Toronto FC. When his option wasn’t picked up by the MLS club following that season, he returned to Valour on a permanent deal in 2022.
After playing 42 matches in all competitions with the Winnipeg club, and scoring four goals, he headed out west for a new adventure with Vancouver FC in 2023.
In two seasons with the expansion club — he was their sixth-ever signing — Romeo played 49 matches. Starting on a backline full of young and inexperienced players, especially at central defender, Romeo was forced to step into a leadership role, one which saw him learn and develop significantly. He even captained the Eagles in the lone match in club history in which Callum Irving did not play, a 2-1 win over Halifax Wanderers on July 7, 2023.
He is looking to bring those lessons and experiences back with him to Winnipeg, as someone who has not only learned how to become a better leader on the pitch, but a better teammate off it as well. Valour are anticipating he becomes a mentor for young defenders like 22-year-old centre-back Frankie Facchineri.
“I think stepping up and being the guy has helped boost my overall mentality and confidence as a player,” said Romeo. “And also establishing myself even more in this league.”
While he developed a lot as a player and man during his time in Vancouver, the results on the pitch remained frustrating. Particularly in 2024, where after an excellent start to the year, the Eagles missed the playoffs despite being in a postseason position for 23 of the league’s 28 match weeks.
“This past season was pretty frustrating,” said Romeo. “Being in the position that we were in halfway through the year, and then having a pretty bad decline, and finishing the season the way we did was very disappointing. And I don’t mind saying that, just because the calibre and quality that we had was arguably one of the best in the league.”
Romeo isn’t interested in letting something like that happen this year in Winnipeg. The story of Valour throughout its history so far has been ‘almost’. In 2021, they missed out on the playoffs by a single point, and again finished fifth in 2022 after going winless in their final five matches of the season– a year prior to the league’s revised playoff format allowing five teams to qualify. This latest season, they were still in the playoff hunt until the campaign’s final day, but ultimately finished the year at the bottom of the table.
“Just from speaking with the coaching staff at Valour, and some of the other players, you can definitely sense that hunger, and it was definitely a different type of hunger than I’ve experienced from the groups that I had with Valour before,” said Romeo. “I definitely think everybody is kind of tired of coming close and just getting by or competing. There’s definitely a sense of, we’re going to win, and there’s no excuses.”
He says he has felt that change of mentality not only in the veteran players who have been in Winnipeg for a while, but also in many of the new faces that have joined the club since his departure. He especially saw that from afar over the second half of the 2025 season, when Valour made a strong playoff push — losing just four of their final 14 matches.
In his return to Winnipeg, he reunites with several former teammates — not only those from his last time with Valour, but also the likes of Dante Campbell, Jordan Faria, Themi Antonoglou and Shaan Hundal, all of whom he spent time with at Toronto FC, and the latter at Vancouver FC as well.
“It’s kind of an easy transition because a quarter of the guys on that team I grew up with, playing with them at TFC, in the academy, and even in the second team and first team,” said Romeo.
He believes that with these players, and those that they have added, including the recent acquisition of Kris Twardek from Atlético Ottawa, this Valour team is on the verge of accomplishing something special. Now it is about buying in collectively and believing they can not just compete, but contend, in the league this year.
Romeo’s goals for this coming season are simple.
“For the club overall, to make history,” said Romeo. “For myself, I want to make history too.
“Keep the standard high and win. There’s not much else about wanting to get individual accolades. Everybody says ‘we want to win the championship’, but I think you have to be realistic in saying that, just go at each task one by one. First, stay in the playoff picture throughout the 28 games. Canadian Championship, win your match and move on. So that’d be my target and focus for this season, just proving people wrong. That’s it.”
With Rocco Romeo at the back, Valour are now in a much better position to do so in 2025.