Missing from the today’s Canadian Premier League soccer game in Toronto will be strikers Kamron Habibullah of Pacific FC and Lowell Wright of York United. But that’s a good thing. It shows the CPL is doing what it was intended to do. Habibullah and Wright are two of the six CPL players with sa国际传媒 in the CONCACAF U-20 qualifier in Honduras from today through July 3 for four berths into the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Indonesia and two berths into the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It’s a credit to the CPL and is what our league is all about — giving young players an opportunity and platform to play pro minutes under pro pressure and develop that pro mindset,” said PFC head coach James Merriman.
“That’s why the CPL is so important to Canadian soccer development and this shows it’s working.”
The other CPL players on the sa国际传媒 U-20 team are defender Kwasi Poku of Forge FC, forward Jean-Aniel Assi of Cavalry FC, midfielder Matthew Catavolo of Valour FC and goalkeeper Dino Bontis of Forge FC. sa国际传媒 opens today against Cuba.
Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres north, Pacific FC will hunt for answers today when the Tridents play York United at 1 p.m. PT.
“We’ve maybe let ourselves down the last few weeks and now have to push each other and challenge each other,” said Merriman. “We’ve got a good core in the locker-room and guys know they have to be together. The guys have talked about it and moved forward and are motivated and hungry still.”
Island-based PFC is winless in five games, including two league losses, two league draws and a loss on penalty kicks to York United in a Canadian Championship quarter-final that denied the Tridents a semifinal date next week against the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS.
It has led to a situation where the CPL table has tightened. Early-season leader PFC (5-3-3) has dropped into a second-place tie with Atletico Ottawa, two points behind leading Cavalry FC of Calgary. Six of the other seven teams have games in hand on the Tridents, lending even more of a sense of urgency to today’s game.
The insertion of emerging PFC-attacker Gianni dos Santos back into the lineup could be the jolt the Tridents need. Dos Santos earned his first cap last week as he and his Cape Verde national side played tough in a 1-0 loss to 2022 Qatar World Cup-bound Ecuador in Miami.
Today’s game is against the team in which Pacific FC began its slide. Especially costly was the bruising scoreless league draw last month versus York United at Starlight Stadium in which three Tridents regulars went down in the first half and haven’t returned. Among the injured are the fluid midfielder Manny Aparicio, who was the straw that stirred the PFC attack in the early season. Hometown-product Sean Young, injured too against York in that game, also effectively played that spark-plug role in midfield and has yet to return. PFC’s game hasn’t been the same since. Compounding the issue is that the third key PFC player in that role, Marco Bustos, has had an uncharacteristically quiet season with little impact after previous CPL MVP-candidate seasons.
“It’s just a matter of time,” said Merriman, of the six-time sa国际传媒-capped Bustos.
“Marco has been working hard and his level hasn’t dropped in training. We are expecting a big performance from him [today].”
York United (2-4-4 in league) is coached by Victoria-product Martin Nash, the former Whitecaps pro and CONCACAF Gold Cup champion capped 38 times for sa国际传媒. Nash’s club is coming off a scoreless draw against Ottawa and hasn’t been a ball of fire of late, either, with three losses and two draws in its last five games.
