Phillip Dos Santos left the pitch with his coat in hand and head down after being issued a red card in the final minutes.
Frustration had boiled over for Valour FC’s head coach as his club’s fate was written — the ink on its season-long comeback story had dried up.
A 2-1 loss to Calvary FC in the regular-season finale at Princess Auto Stadium on Saturday not only sent the 2,244 fans in attendance to the off-season on a bitter note, it also slammed the door shut on Valour’s final push for a seat in the Canadian Premier League playoffs.
CPL PHOTO
Valour’s Tass Mourdoukoutas advances the ball during Saturday’s regular-season finale.
“Was there frustration? Yes,” said Dos Santos, who was ejected for disputing a penalty kick awarded to Cavalary late in the match, which proved to be the game-winning goal.
“For me, it’s just the moment and the fact that you work so hard, and your players work so hard to be in there and to have a chance, and I think that in a 50-50, something that could one way or the other and it wouldn’t have been a scandal, it’s too easy to just blow the whistle and say, ‘Ah, you know what? I feel like calling this one.’
“Our fans deserve more. Our fans deserve to at least come out of here in a moment where if you don’t make it, that they see their team rewarded for the type of work they put out on the field today, and that was more of my side of the frustration.”
Valour is still searching for its first post-season berth in franchise history and a 7-7-14 record ended as the worst in the CPL for the second season in a row.
On a positive note, the club was much more competitive this summer than last when it scored just 25 times in 28 contests.
Winnipeg’s side needed a lot to go their way on the final day of the CPL regular season to get in this year — a win, a loss from Pacific FC and a loss or tie from Vancouver FC — but the club had a pulse, and that’s all it could’ve asked for after being written off by the midpoint in the campaign.
Valour began with five straight losses as it navigated a tough opening stretch of playing its first eight contests away from home, and was 4-1-9 by the season’s midpoint. Their fortunes changed from that point, posting a 3-6-4 record to give themselves a chance right until the end.
“It would’ve been a bigger disappointment if we had looked at the other result and seen that it had gone our way,” said Dos Santos. “I wanted the win for the guys, I wanted the win for this last game, for what it meant for the club and just to give the guys a prize for how they embraced this second phase of the season when things looked very difficult for us, being this very hard team to play against and creating a foundation and a platform that allows us to build from.”
Valour got the start it wanted when Abdul Binate opened the scoring in the seventh minute.
Dos Santos implored his team to be decisive and aggressive when they had the chance deep in the offensive third this week. The team practised with an emphasis on moving the ball around quickly to get a look in a dangerous position.
The hosts executed it to perfection as Shaan Hundal’s cross-box pass to Jordan Faria was briefly broken up before a trailing Binate buried the match’s opening marker.
“We’ve been using the (phrase), ‘Being pragmatic,’ just to get the ball into the last area and try to score a goal because we knew we had to win this game,” said Binate. “We did everything as planned.”
“We had a great start and everyone was really fired up for the game but not being able to hold the lead and conceding goals late in the game and just losing that game definitely really hurts.”
Cavalry’s Tobias Warschewski equalized the match in the 57th minute following a corner kick. Warschewski, who will receive the Golden Boot award for leading the league with 12 goals this season, also successfully converted a penalty kick in the 89th minute.
While Valour’s campaign ends on a note of disappointment that has become all too familiar since the club joined the CPL six years ago, the last two months of play have left Dos Santos with a reason for optimism as he enters a critical off-season for the club.
“There’s a lot, of course, because I look at the type of players we have here and then the group of players were able to bring together and the team that was built, I think that last year when I was sitting here in this place the team had been out for a few games from the playoff picture and I was here thinking, ‘Man, it’s almost a rebuild,’ he said. “Today, I think that there’s a strong foundation that is put in place and that we have a lot of space to grow.
“I think that our off-season is one that… will be more strategic, and it’s going to be about making sure that whoever comes in, comes in to elevate a group of guys that have shown that they could play every match, to compete, to stay competitive.”
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Joshua Frey-Sam
Reporter
Josh Frey-Sam reports on sports and business at the Free Press. Josh got his start at the paper in 2022, just weeks after graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College. He’s reported primarily on amateur teams and athletes in sports and writes a weekly real estate feature for the business section. Read more about Josh.
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