There can’t be much more motivation to play a soccer game than a cross-strait derby match against former teammates.
“I am excited. It’s a special game for me,” said Vancouver FC striker Alejandro Diaz, as he prepared to meet his former club Pacific FC.
Today’s game in Langley, kick off 1 p.m., will see plenty of Island fans going across to support PFC, including one group on a rented bus.
“Derbies are special and you have to build that history,” said Diaz.
But this one seems automatic, despite being VFC’s debut season in the Canadian Premier League. Diaz is a big part of that already built-in history. The former Mexico Under-20 and U-23 international, and defending CPL Golden Boot champion as leading scorer, departed PFC mid-season last year to join Sogndal of the Norwegian First Division for a Sogndal club record transfer fee and the second-highest in CPL history.
“My time spent in Victoria was amazing,” said Diaz, the all-time PFC franchise leader in goals with 31 in 62 games across all competitions for the Tridents.
“Now I’m here, and it’s a derby game for three points and the victory.”
Diaz has recorded two goals in five games since joining VFC from Sogndal and is third on the all-time CPL scoring list with 28 league goals, trailing only PFC striker Easton Ongaro’s 29 and Forge FC striker and former PFC forward Terran Campbell’s 39.
“Of course I want to do that [keep climbing the CPL career scoring list] but that is not my main purpose,” said Diaz.
What is today is beating his former teammates.
“PFC is a really dynamic team,” he said.
And in first place at 9-5-5 while VFC languishes in last place at 3-11-5 in wins-losses-draws. “It has been hard for us to score goals but a derby is a different vibe with a different energy,” Diaz said.
PFC won the wildly differing first two games between the clubs, 1-0 on a late goal at Starlight Stadium and a 6-3 scorefest in Langley. But the addition of Diaz is now the wildcard in the derby.
“[Diaz] is so efficient around the goal and clinical in finishing. He is such a great professional,” said VFC head coach Afshin Ghotbi, who has coached in eight countries, and been on the coaching staff at three World Cups with the U.S. in 1998 and South Korea in 2002 and 2006.
“It doesn’t matter where you are in the table, derbies contain a great deal of emotion,” added Ghotbi, head coach of the Iranian national team from 2009 to 2011.
Ghotbi said a derby victory today could resonate into a late-season charge for VFC: “We have nine games remaining. We still have a chance.”
PFC head coach James Merriman said his Tridents are ready to confront their former teammate Diaz: “Alejandro was a great player for us with a lot of success. But this [switching teams] happens all the time in world football and we are a professional enough group to understand this.”
PFC, which has been more productive on the road than at Starlight Stadium, seems to have VFC just where it wants them — in Langley.
“PFC is one of the best teams in the league and is a much better away team,” Ghotbi said.
Today, however, may sound like more of a home game for the Tridents with fans expected across on the ferry.
“We feel good on the road, and obviously, this is the shortest trip we make, and we will want to impose ourselves,” said Merriman. “We have great supporters and it’s going to be a great atmosphere.”
