His troops bloodied and bruised physically and emotionally, Valour GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos is imploring his squad to summon their inner-‘Rocky’ with their Canadian Premier League playoff hopes hanging in the balance.

Keep swinging, stay on your feet and – despite the odds against – remember this team has a puncher’s chance until the final bell.

“We’re still alive. We have had nine lives and that’s a good thing,” said Dos Santos as Valour completed preparations for its final home game of the 2021 season Tuesday night against HFX Wanderers.

“I’ve seen a lot of crazy things in sports so, for me, it’s about going right to the last minute with the right approach and you never know what might happen. That’s how we have to go about it.”

Valour, with eight wins and four draws against 13 defeats, is currently sixth in the CPL standings – six points behind Wanderers, who hold the final playoff spot. Sandwiched in between the two clubs are York United FC, with 33 points.

A win Tuesday against HFX would move the club three points closer, albeit with just two matches after that remaining. But there is still a pulse for Valour’s playoff chances – even after last week’s 2-0 loss to Atlético Ottawa – as both Wanderers and York tied on the weekend to keep them mathematically within range.

“It was tough to swallow the one in Ottawa because we thought we were, overall through the 90 minutes, the team that had more control of the game and normally when you have that amount of possession and that volume of shots you win,” said Dos Santos. “It’s not always the case.

“We knew we were dependent on other teams’ results, but with Halifax and York grabbing only one point from their games it still puts us in a position where if we win (Tuesday) we start putting pressure on a team like Halifax. It’s still game on. I want this team to be in the position where we are going to play until the last game with a chance. That’s what I want.

“I don’t want the mentality where we’re making excuses. Yes, it’s hard. And we’re not in a place where we want to be. Had we grabbed the three points in Ottawa we would have been probably playing for a playoff spot Tuesday night. But we can’t beat ourselves up and we have to look at the opportunity that’s straight ahead of us. That’s how I want the guys to see it.

“We’re in pro sports. We have to be pros. We have an obligation towards each other, towards the logo that we represent and that’s how I want the guys to be right to the end. If we finish the season and we don’t have enough points to be at that playoff line then we’ll deal with it at that time.

“Right now we’re still alive so we have to keep pushing.”

Valour FC needs to live in the moment, knowing that a win Tuesday allows them to stay in the fight. Dos Santos obviously has his eyes focussed squarely on that front.

Still, at the same time Dos Santos has to be mapping out plans for beyond Tuesday. And now that he’s had a decent look at the CPL landscape since taking over, he was asked how close he thinks Valour is to the league’s elite.

“I can’t answer that question in a general way,” he said. “The truth is, I don’t think we’re that far off. But when we’re lacking the consistency that those teams at the top have, teams like Pacific, Cavalry and Forge.

“I don’t want to fall into the mistake of over-evaluating our team or under-evaluating our team. We’re not far, but we can’t hide it – there’s needs in the team. There’s areas on the field that we need to grow and be better and mature. That’s going to happen through work or through recruitment.

“The teams in this league aren’t that far off from each other, but what makes the difference is they have guys who every day are able to bring similar levels of performances with no major ups and downs. That’s what is going to allow you to win and I think our team has had too many ups and downs, too many guys that in any given day you don’t know what they are going to bring to you. That’s part of my job now – I’m going to make sure we keep and we have in this group guys that are more consistent in their quality and how often do they deliver and make sure we better in areas where we feel we have bigger needs.”

Valour is 1-2-4 since Dos Santos took over, with a -3 goal differential over that span. But the loss in Ottawa was also emblematic of the team’s struggles of late – good possession numbers, but a lack of finish and iffy defending at critical moments.

“This team has been competitive in every game since I’ve been here,” Dos Santos said. “Yeah, some have been more difficult… I think about the game in Pacific (a 3-2 loss on Oct. 16^th). But we played Cavalry, we played Forge and I always felt we were competitive. Now we’ve made potentially more mistakes in certain games, we’ve been less prolific in front of goal than they have so it’s about finding that consistency.

“It’s my job to bring them to that level of consistency and also to recruit players that are going to better the team for us to be consistently there with them.”