An old friend came back to haunt Pacific FC on Sunday.
Former PFC player Zach Verhoven scored the winner at 86 minutes to give Atlético Ottawa a 2-1 Canadian Premier League victory over the Tridents before 4,176 lively fans at TD Bank Stadium in the nation’s capital.
What made the moment even more dramatic is that the winning goal came just three minutes after PFC had battled back to level the game 1-1 through a goal by Josh Heard.
“It means a lot to me individually to get that goal,” said Verhoven, who played for PFC in 2019 and 2020.
“There are no hard feelings because Pacific are a great group of guys. Those two years with Pacific were very important to me and I learned a lot about myself as a player and as a person. I took a long look in the mirror when I left Pacific to figure out what I needed to do to become a [better] professional player.”
That introspection paid off, personally and for his adopted team.
“To get the three points, and the atmosphere with a crowd like that, was great. And to show we can compete with the defending champions,” said the 23-year-old Burnaby product.
It was a statement win for Atlético Ottawa, which moved into second place at 5-2-2, one point behind leading PFC (5-2-3) with a game in hand. Ottawa, owned by Spanish La Liga giant Atlético Madrid, was last in the CPL last season and is the most improved club in the league under new head coach Carlos González, a Spaniard who has coached the Kuwait national team.
“It’s an important win against the last champions,” said González. “It’s the type of win that sends messages.”
The Tridents were left to rue a late collapse after working hard to tie the game late after Malcolm Shaw had given the hosts the lead at 62 minutes.
“We’ve got to be better closing games down,” said PFC scorer Heard.
“It was frustrating to let that one go, but it’s a long season,” added the former Vancouver Whitecaps MLS draft pick out of the University of Washington Huskies.
Tridents head coach James Merriman echoed those same thoughts: “We need to be in more control and didn’t need to have the game open up so quickly after scoring the tying goal. We were too stretched out [in the few remaining minutes following the tying goal]. We tied the game, but they pushed after that. They are dynamic in counter-attack. It was frustrating and disappointing. These are two quality teams, but we were wasteful on the ball.”
Defending champions and league leaders can never rest easy, as PFC is learning.
“We have a target on our back and we know that,” said Heard.
“We get every team’s best. But that comes with the privilege of being in first place, which we have been for nine weeks.”
PFC is at Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton on Sunday to meet Forge FC in a reprise of the 2021 CPL championship game, won 1-0 by the Tridents.
CORNER KICKS: Toronto FC of MLS edged Forge FC on penalty kicks before 13,164 fans at Tim Hortons Field to win the 2020 Canadian Championship final, which was delayed two years to Sunday due to the pandemic. The closeness of the game against an MLS club was another indication of how far the CPL has come in four years.
