Another rigorous Valour FC training session had been filed away and as players began unwinding before heading back to the team facility at IG Field, Marcello Polisi was spotted going through an extensive stretching routine.

And he was smiling throughout the whole process.

Now, maybe it’s simply the perspective that comes with time and learning to understand riding the highs will also mean grinding through the lows, but Polisi perfectly fits the profile Valour was seeking when its makeover began last November.

He has experience in the Canadian Premier League. He’s tough to play against, and he’s got that been there/done that resumé that means Phillip Dos Santos and his coaching staff won’t have to worry about his daily preparation.

And, interestingly enough, so much of that comes from a conversation Polisi had with his mom back when he was 16 years old.

“I remember it specifically,” Polisi said in a chat this week with valourfootball.club. “It was a car ride home with my mom. I was injured, but I remember saying to her, ‘This is what I want to do.’ Why? Because I enjoy every moment of this. You’ve got to enjoy the suffering, the running, the mental fight through being injured… all of it. No one sees that part – the grind. It takes a lot of days of discipline and suffering and hard work. You’ve got to do everything day to day to get what you want. It has to come within.

“Even when I was injured and suffering, I knew this is what I want to do. It was, ‘I really need this’ and I wasn’t going to stop until I got it.”

A product of Burnaby, B.C., Polisi has soccer memories that date back to when he was four. At age 11 and 12 he had training stints with the youth teams of Standard Liege in Belgium before joining the Vancouver Whitecaps Academy and then starring at Simon Fraser University.

Over the last two years he appeared in 32 CPL and four Canadian Championship matches for HFX Wanderers before his contract wasn’t renewed last year. Said Polisi of his experiences in Nova Scotia: “The past two seasons didn’t go as planned there. I wanted new challenges and they wanted to start fresh. No hard feelings. It’s the nature of the business. I’m happy where I am.”

To that end, Polisi gushed about everything he’s experienced so far with Valour, from the facilities to the training sessions, to the coaching staff and their planning.

What comes next will be an important step for both the 26-year-old and for his new club.

“What I like most is his intensity,” said Dos Santos, Valour’s GM and head coach. “I think intensity is contagious. When there are two-three guys in your midfield who are capable of transmitting that energy, it affects your team. You look at guys like (Raphael) Ohin, Guti (Diego Gutiérrez), Marcello, Dante (Campbell)… when it’s in their DNA, you don’t need to push that because it comes in a very natural way.

“But it’s also about his mentality, his maturity and the experience he has in this league. It’s his competitiveness and his quality as well.”

Asked about that obvious competitiveness – Polisi attacks each drill like the Canadian Shield was on the line – and the veteran midfielder grins.

“Growing up, me and my brothers Luigi and Matteo (formerly with Pacific FC) have always been competitive,” he said. “It didn’t matter what we were doing. We could be in the grocery store, and it would be who is the fastest in getting to the car. Honestly, without those two I don’t think I’d be where I am today. They’ve helped me through everything… my mom and my dad, too.

“At the end of the day I always had the mentality that I wanted to be a pro. I’ve grown up in a professional environment and understand what it takes. I’m blessed to be where I am today.”

Again, Polisi not only fits a Valour needs positionally, but can become a tone setter for a squad seeking its first CPL playoff berth since its inception in 2019. His work ethic, plus his appreciation for where he is, can be infectious to a group that now includes more vets than fresh faces, but will also need to maneuver around the potholes that will pop up this season.

“The guys who are able to see football like life will succeed,” said Dos Santos. “I say this because you will have ups and downs and if you are low when things are not going your way and you don’t enjoy the grind, you are going to suffer more. When you see the grind as something that is part of life, then you cope with it better and you’re chances of succeeding because your mentality is right is going to be higher. I like players like that. Marcello is like that.”