It’s that time of the season in the Canadian Premier League when neck craning is caused by looking up at the out-of-town scoreboard.
Pacific FC knows it will step on to the Starlight Stadium pitch this afternoon — against Cavalry FC of Calgary — being in sixth place or tied for fifth place in the race for the fifth and final playoff berth in the CPL.
Current fifth-place PFC is one point ahead of Vancouver FC and Valour FC of Winnipeg and two points ahead of the HFX Wanderers of Halifax. Each team has three games remaining. VFC and HFX play today at 11 a.m. PT in Halifax, so the Tridents realize one or both of those rivals will gain points. A VFC victory against HFX will put the Eagles two points up on the Tridents. An HFX victory today puts the Wanderers one point ahead of PFC. A draw will leave VFC and PFC tied for fifth place, with the Wanderers joining Valour FC (which plays league-leading Forge FC on Sunday) at a point back. The Tridents will know the result of the VFC-HFX game before meeting Cavalry FC. They will also know at that point they have a game in hand, which will be quickly used up this afternoon in Langford against the third-place Calgary club.
“We know the moment we are in and we need to embrace that,” said PFC head coach James Merriman, in his pre-game media conference.
“We know we need to take all three points to assure staying above the line and taking the fifth spot to make the playoffs and give ourselves a chance [at the title]. I think we will [keep tabs on the VFC-HFX result]. That’s the point of the season that we are in. More importantly, we need to do our job. We can’t control what happens in other matches. We can only control what we can control, which is our match against Cavalry, and after that York, and after that Forge.”
Pacific FC knows it is master of its own destiny. If PFC wins out, neither VFC, HFX or Valour FC can surpass the Tridents.
“As of right now, we are in control,” said Merriman. “We need to stay focused on that and do our job. We’ll have one eye on the other results, but if we do our job, we stay in control.”
That’s the message reverberating in the room.
“We still hold the [advantage] in this race. We are the ones in charge. It’s on us,” said PFC veteran and former Canada U-20 and U-23 player Thomas Meilleur-Giguère, who has nine career goals in five seasons for the Tridents, despite being a defender.
Cavalry FC, meanwhile, has clinched a playoff berth and given PFC recent fits and have not lost to the Tridents in league play in nine games dating to 2022. This year’s three previous matches between the clubs have featured 0-0 and 1-1 draws and a 1-0 Calgary win. Cavalry FC leads the all-time series against PFC 15-8-6 in wins-losses-draws.
PFC is attempting to keep alive its streak of making the playoffs the past four seasons after having only missed the post-season in the CPL’s inaugural year in 2019.
