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Valour captain Raphael Ohin celebrates the club's first goal Friday against Cavalry FC -- photo courtesy CFC Media Mike Sturk
Match Report | Cavalry FC 2 Valour FC 2
August 30, 2024
Ed Tait
by
Ed Tait

Don’t begin penning the obituary on Valour FC’s 2024 Canadian Premier League season just yet.

Winnipeg’s professional soccer side found some magic in crucial moments in a critical match Friday night at ATCO Field in Calgary, rallying from a 2-nil hole after 60 minutes to tie the hottest club in the CPL in enemy territory. And with the schedule shrinking — now with just seven matches remaining — that point could be massive in the club’s push for its first-ever playoff spot.

Valour is now 6-3-12 on the season, with the 21 points five back of Vancouver FC and the final playoff spot. Vancouver, FYI, is in action on Saturday in the nation’s capital against Atlético Ottawa. Valour also gained a slight separation from Pacific FC, now one point behind them, after the Tridents fell 2-nil to Forge FC in Hamilton earlier in the evening.

“It’s all about belief,” said captain Raphael Ohin, who scored the club’s first goal of the night. “Sometimes you have to feed off the coach and we have a coach who never gives up who always tells the guys, ‘We have to stick together.’ Belief is a big thing in the locker room.

“A few months ago when we go down 1-0 or 2-0 it looks like the game is over. But you can tell we’ve come a long way. Obviously there’s something good going in the locker room, which is the mindset and the belief. We just want to keep doing the same thing week in and week out.”

Valour and Cavalry traded an abundance of chances in the first half, and it was the home side who broke the seal with two goals in a span of four minutes — both off set pieces — with Bradley Kamdem scoring in the 56th minute and then an own goal in the 61st. Still, to build on Ohin’s comments above, where Valour would have folded earlier in the season it instead scrapped to get back in the contest, the first goal coming off Ohin’s header in the 66th minute on a corner from Roberto Alarcon.

Moments later, Valour tied the score on another corner from the opposite side as Themi Antonoglou’s effort was headed past Marco Carducci by Abdul Binate, who had subbed into the match just three minutes earlier.

And so a club which had given up the winner in added time in a crushing loss to Vancouver FC — and then fell behind 2-nil against Cavalry — showed some fight with their playoff push in serious jeopardy.

“It’s big, because it shows the growth of the team, it shows the character of the team,” said GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos of the point most-certainly earned. “Raph mentioned this — a few months ago this team collapsed under circumstances which were similar. As of late we’ve shown maturity in our ability to come back from situations where we either concede a goal, or we concede an equalizer.

“… It’s growth. It’s a very new group of players. It’s a young group of players and sometimes these things take a little bit for the group to understand it’s going to happen, you’re going to have ups and downs in games and you need to emotionally deal with them, control your emotions and be ready for the next play. Football is made is of moments and what’s behind you, you can’t control. You can only control what’s ahead of you. When you go down 2-0 you can’t dwell on that. All you can think is we need one goal and then anything can happen.

“That shows the growth of the team and it shows the growth of the individuals and, for me, that’s the biggest victory today.”

‘V’ NOTES
-Valour now returns home to face Ottawa on Monday, September 9th, 7 p.m. Five of the club’s final seven matches will be at Princess Auto Stadium.
-The squad welcomed back Antonoglou vs. Cavalry after he served a one-game suspension for yellow-card accumulation. Midfielder Dante Campbell will return for the Ottawa game after serving a suspension, but Frankie Facchineri’s yellow in the 91st minute will mean he has to sit out the next match.

08-30-2024 – Forward Abdul Binate celebrates match-tying goal — CFC Media Mike Sturk

Cavalry FC 2 Valour FC 2

Goals

Valour FC
65:34′: Raphael Ohin (assist: Roberto Alarcon)
69:13′: Abdul Binate (assist: Themi Antonoglou)

Cavalry FC
55:57′: Bradley Kamdem
60:25′: own goal (Jonathan Viscosi)

Card summary

Valour FC
10:12’: Tass Mourdoukoutas (yellow, reckless offence)
90:40′: Frankie Facchineri (yellow, tactical foul)
94:36′: Raphael Ohin (yellow, reckless offence)

Cavalry FC
70:13’: Bradley Kamdem (yellow, dissent)

VALOUR STARTING XI
GK – Jonathan Viscosi
D – Roberto Alarcon
D – Frankie Facchineri
D – Tass Mourdoukoutas
D – Themi Antonoglou
MF – Raphael Ohin ©
MF – Safwane Mlah
FW – Diogo Ressurreição
FW – Jordan Faria
F – Shaan Hundal
F – Jordi Swibel

Valour substitutions
66:38’: On Juan-Pablo Sanchez; off Safwane Mlah
66:45′: On Loic Kwemi; off Jordan Faria
66:51′: On Abdul Binate; off Shaan Hundal
85:39′: On Jordan Haynes: off Diogo Ressurreição
85:40′: On Joe Hanson; off Jordi Swibel