It will undoubtedly be the same all over the Canadian Premier League map — a sense of optimism and anticipation as the curtain lifts on a seventh season of this country’s domestic professional soccer circuit.
That sentiment exits here in Winnipeg with Valour FC, too, as the club seeks a first-ever playoff berth since the franchise’s inception in 2019. This is a squad that finished last in the standings a year ago after a horrific start yet rebounded to post the third-most points in the second half of the season and has been buoyed by some key offseason additions and some positive results in preseason over the last month.
Question now is, can that momentum carry into Saturday’s CPL season opener in Victoria against Pacific FC (7 p.m. CT; One Soccer)?
“This team has great chemistry,” began fullback Themi Antonoglou in a chat with valourfootball.club this week. “We played six preseason games, and everybody stepped up to the plate with a great shift at one point. The biggest thing for us is just to find consistency and grow that confidence we showed in the preseason by bringing it into the first game and then keep it up through the season.”
Valour finished last year with seven wins and seven draws against 14 defeats and returns 10 players from that squad, including Antonoglou — a finalist for CPL Defender of the Year — goalkeeper Jonathan Viscosi, defenders Frankie Facchineri and Roberto Alarcon, midfielders Dante Campbell, Raphael Ohin, Safwane Mlah, Diogo Ressurreicao and Jordan Faria and forward Shaan Hundal. Midifelder/attacker Kian Williams also returns after missing all of 2024 with a knee injury.
That group has been bolstered by the additions of CPL regulars like forward Kris Twardek (Atlético Ottawa), fullback Zachary Fernandez (HFX Wanderers), centre backs Rocco Romeo (Vancouver FC) and Kelsey Egwu (former FC Edmonton who is on loan from JK Narva Trans in Estonia).
“It’s a good group, a group that has bought into the system and style,” said Twardek. “This is a team that I’m pretty confident other teams won’t want to play against. It’s a team that will play with a high amount of intensity and will leave everything on the line with nothing to fear. Obviously, there was a very positive second half of the season but, unfortunately, it finished last. But there’s a good group of people here who care.
“It’s an enjoyable group. I always tell my wife when I go back home that this is a fun environment to be in and that’s so important.”
Valour opened the 2024 season with seven straight league matches on the road as the new turf was installed at Princess Auto Stadium and fell into an immediate hole with five straight losses, followed by a win and a draw. The club rallied in the summer, but failed to lock up a postseason spot with just one win and five draws against three losses in its final nine matches.
this is in fact Shaan’s super jacked up face. #ForValour pic.twitter.com/0Txk2vAYEy
— Valour FC (@ValourFootball) April 3, 2025
“It’s about learning from the whole season last year,” said Hundal, who tied for the team lead in goals in ’24 with seven. “The first half, there were a lot of ups and downs. A lot of guys on the team this year went through that, and they know how to manage the ups and downs.
“I’m excited and the whole team is excited as well. We had a good preseason and we’re all excited to show the fans what we did in preseason behind closed doors. We want to start this season off on the front foot by getting three points away. All over the club we all know we need to make the playoffs but the whole team wants more than just the playoffs. For Valour, making the playoffs might seem like it’s enough but for the guys in the locker room, it’s not. We want more.
“I’m excited. Just in warm-up today I told Kris, ‘I love going to Pacific; I love the home-opener vibe’ and he said, ‘You’ve said that three times today.'”