Picture the scene, if you will…
There was Valour GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos in the Air Canada Lounge at Pearson International Airport in Toronto last weekend, waiting for his flight to Ireland so he could complete his UEFA Pro license. Hunkered down in front of his laptop, he was watching his squad in action on his laptop against Pacific FC. It was killing him to miss the game, but the opportunity to secure the highest level of coaching on the planet doesn’t always align with a manager’s schedule.
Down 1-nil early in the second half and after having lost two centre backs to injury, Valour rallied for a 1-1 draw courtesy a spectacular goal by Pacifique Niyongabire in the 69th minute. And given the circumstances – a completely patched-together back like made worse by the late scratch of Abdou Samake before the game and then seeing Jordan Haynes injured in the first half – the rally and the point earned showed Dos Santos so very much about his troops.
“When Pacifique scored, I gave a little shout with my fist up in the air. I can tell you that,” Dos Santos with a chuckle in a chat with valourfootball.club from Dublin, Ireland. “It wasn’t perfect, but with everything that’s been going on – with (Abdou) Samake coming out in the warm-up and then Jordan Haynes being a last resort in being thrown into a position he’d never played before and going down, too…
“They showed a lot of character. When we went down 1-nil at that point I was thinking, ‘Fight and get a point. Get something out of this game’ because the adversity was so big. And then they go down 1-0 and still find a way to get the equalizer. But, again, at that point in time with everything that has gone on around the team you say, ‘Don’t lose this one and it will allow us to breathe for another week above that line.’”
Valour enters this weekend’s match against Vancouver FC on the west coast still in a playoff spot with seven points on one win and four draws against one loss. It’s significant given all the injuries on the back line and a made over roster that hasn’t yet had the opportunity to build any kind of cohesion or continuity.
Dos Santos will join the club in Vancouver on Saturday after travelling from Belfast to Dublin – he took the last phase of his UEFA Pro licensing through the Irish Football Association – then to Newark, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Critical now for Valour is to find a semblance of that continuity and cohesion over the next few weeks. The club opened the season with a win over York United FC, and has cranked out the four draws with the one loss a spirited 3-2 setback against defending Canadian Premier League champion Forge FC in Hamilton.
“Everyone kept talking about the absences of some Pacific’s key players last week,” said Dos Santos of last weekend’s opponent, who did rest some regulars for their Canadian Championship match four days later. “That’s true, but what people need to understand is it’s not the fact that we have players missing because we trust everyone that steps into the role. The problem is when you get injuries there are other things that are affected, including the lack of continuity at that position, lack of rhythm of the guys that come in or eventually get healthy. It’s not being able to train the way you would like, with intensity and rhythm.
“It’s having to be extremely creative in the way you approach different levels of organization. It’s the fear or the doubt you see on the face of a player when he sees a teammate go down. It’s, ‘Man, am I next?’
“We look at it and we say, ‘We need a break right now. We really need a break.’
‘V’ NOTES
-Valour will have midfielder/defender Dante Campbell back from suspension. He missed last week’s draw against Pacific after having picked up four yellow cards since the start of the season.