Pacific FC forward Terran Campbell loves video gaming.
But oddly enough, for the Golden Boot leader of the Canadian Premier League, it isn’t FIFA 20 he favours but instead Call of Duty and NBA 2K20.
In fact, Campbell didn’t challenge Werder Bremen eSports FIFA superstars Michael Bittner (MegiBit98) and Mohammed Harkous (MoAuba) when they came through town recently to play PFC players.
Campbell is a guy who prefers to play his soccer on a real, not virtual, pitch. And he has been doing it well with a league-leading 10 goals. He will go down as the first player to score into double digits in CPL history
Campbell will be hoping to add to his total today at noon at Westhills Stadiums when Pacific FC hosts FC Edmonton in a nationally televised game on CBC.
Not that it has been easy becoming one of the talking points of the inaugural CPL season.
“Scoring goals is hard,” said the 20-year-old Burnaby product Campbell.
“It’s a hard process, so I came into this season with no expectations.”
Wide-bodied at six-foot and 185 pounds, Campbell has done well to stake his territory in front of the opposition net. Once he establishes position, he is hard to budge off it.
“Once Terran began believing in himself, he turned the corner,” said Pacific FC head coach Michael Silberbauer.
And he wants more.
“He is not satisfied by this,” said Silberbauer, whose own pro journey took him to the Dutch Eredivisie and the Danish national team to Euro 2012.
What makes Silberbauer most pleased is that Campbell realizes he needs to be a well-rounded player if he hopes to move up to MLS or Europe: “Terran is not just a scorer but also growing into a complete player off the ball.”
Campbell knows goal scoring is a fickle task master.
“If goals come, they come,” he said, during a recent training session.
“But you’re not getting any goals without your teammates. They have been crossing the ball well and I have been in better spots. We’re a good attacking side.”
Except in PFC’s last last outing when its offence was shut down in a 2-0 loss to York9 of Toronto, which ended a four-game Pacific unbeaten run.
“We were obviously disappointed,” said PFC defender Blake Smith, on loan from FC Cincinnati of MLS.
“I think we played well for the most part. Sometimes games like that go your way and sometimes they don’t. We have to put that match behind us and focus this weekend on Edmonton.”
PFC is 3-5-3 in the fall season and FC Edmonton, nicknamed the Eddies, are 3-3-5 following a 1-0 loss to Cavalry FC in the Alberta derby, which is dubbed Al Classico.
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