The biggest question mark heading into Sunday鈥檚 Canadian Premier League soccer game was how Pacific FC would come down from the high of beating the Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League soccer in their previous game in the Canadian Championship.
PFC leveled off quite well, as it turned out, in a 3-2 victory over Valour FC of Winnipeg before 2,621 fans at Starlight Stadium to extend its lead atop the CPL.
鈥淎fter Thursday there were a lot of doubters as to if we鈥檇 be ready to go back into CPL. But the boys showed a lot of heart and a lot of grit. The way they came out with their energy, carried on from Thursday night, was unbelievable,鈥� said PFC head coach Pa-Modou Kah.
鈥淲e go up 3-1 at the break and should have finished the game better. But we got the three points and the boys wanted this. The lesson learned today, however, is we can finish the game better.鈥�
Goals by Alejandro Diaz, off a steal by rookie-find Matteo Polisi from Coquitlam, followed by Polisi himself and Terran Campbell staked PFC to their lead at the break.
鈥淪ometimes it鈥檚 hard being on such a high and playing a game on such a short turnaround. But right from the start you could see we had the energy in the first half of this game,鈥� said PFC midfield standout Alessandro Hojabrpour.
鈥淲ith the quality we have we go into every game pretty confident. We trust each other more and more every game. It just runs through the entire team.鈥�
Valour FC (7-7-1) has two players on loan from MLS teams 鈥� Rocco Romeo from Toronto FC who acted as captain Sunday and goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois from CF Montreal 鈥� but it wasn鈥檛 enough as PFC recorded its third win of the season against Valour.
鈥淸PFC] seems to have a horseshoe against us at the moment,鈥� said Valour FC head coach Rob Gale.
鈥淲e鈥檙e disappointed. We had the better chances. [PFC] goals were our poor defending. We鈥檝e got to make them earn it. We should have got a point from it. We shot ourselves in the foot tonight. We created first-class chances. We have to put more in.鈥�
PFC (8-3-4) is at FC Edmonton (3-6-5) on Saturday.
