Valour FC a couple of ingredients short of a 'perfect dish' in draw with York

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Valour FC a couple of ingredients short of a 'perfect dish' in draw with York Back to video

By ED TAIT, Special to the Winnipeg Sun

They work, they create and they regularly deliver inspired, if occasionally uneven, performances.

And yet, while all the necessary ingredients seem to be in place for Valour FC to serve up something absolutely delicious, there still seems to be something lacking in the final third of the pitch.

That was never more evident than in Sunday’s 1-1 draw with York United FC in front of 3,352 at a steamy IG Field, a match in which the Valour dominated possession, but still needed some second-half magic from Matteo de Brienne to earn the point.

“Again, it’s one of those where you need to score,” said Valour GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos after the match. “You need to get to the end of the 90 minutes and for the chances we create, we need to score. It’s a pretty simple story of today’s game.

“It’s like that perfect dish, but we’re just missing a little bit of salt and pepper right now.”

Valour now has one win and six draws against one loss this season, with the nine points earned putting the club in a tie with Cavalry FC, also at 1-6-1, for fourth spot in the Canadian Premier League standings.

York United, meanwhile, is now 4-1-4 and with the draw picked up seven points over its three matches in seven days that also included victories over Forge FC and Cavalry.

Valour had 60.3% of possession, out-shot the visitors 18-5, had double the shots on target at 4-2 and had 22 crosses to York’s 10 but couldn’t capitalize on all those dominant numbers.

In fact, it was York that opened the scoring against the flow of play, as Mo Babouli squeezed a shot past Rayane Yesli in the 49th minute.

Valour continued to press and was rewarded by a moment of brilliance from de Brienne, who tracked down a York clearance, then found open space across the top of the box before delivering a right-footed banger that Niko Giantsopolous got one mitt on but couldn’t fully stop.

“In training, there are a lot of situations where I try to recreate moments like that, where I try to create myself some space on the inside,” de Brienne explained.

“But (Valour assistant coach) Daryl Fordyce has also challenged me to be a stronger player on my right foot and so today I just felt it like it was opportunities where I might be able to prove him wrong. I just managed to create myself some space and connect on a strike that ended up in the back of the net, so I’m very happy with that.”

Valour now has four straight draws at home this season and is now unbeaten at IG Field in its past 11 dating back to late last July, with five wins and six draws.

“We conceded early, and it was a very unfortunate way to start the second half,” said de Brienne. “But we’re a team of fight and the fact that we managed to come back and grab one (point) and kept fighting for more just goes to show how much more we want this.

“We were a team the last two seasons to finish in fifth place, just out of a (playoff) spot. This year we’re trying to make it our goal to not even be close to that fifth spot. We want to try and be higher.

“It’s unfortunate we couldn’t get all three points, but we’re going one at a time and we’re going to keep going next week.”

‘V’ NOTES

Sunday’s match was the 400th in the history of the CPL … The club did have centre back Guilluame Pianelli back from injury and on the bench, but he did not see any minutes …The match was played in scorching heat and with the threat of thunderstorms. “There’s never any excuses,” said de Brienne. “It’s our job to play in any conditions and today was one of those where we had to find a way to adapt right away. We’re a team with a lot of chemistry and no matter the circumstances we can find a little gear to get ourselves through.”