The feelings were still raw Wednesday night in the Greater Toronto Area as Pacific FC’s season came to a sudden halt with a 2-0 Canadian Premier League playoff loss to York United.
“Emotions are high and still fresh. It sucks. But it’s football. You put in blood, sweat and tears and work so hard for eight months and it all comes crashing down,” said PFC captain and hometown Victoria product Josh Heard.
“When you don’t reach your goals, you learn something. Myself, the staff, the team will be better for this.”
This biggest takeaway for the Island club from the 2024 season, said Heard, was a lack of consistency that needs to be addressed in 2025: “We can beat any team in the league but then lost games we should win. We can’t flip-flop like that.”
The match-up was between fifth-seed PFC and fourth-seed York United, the latter which won its first playoff game and scored the first two post-season goals in franchise history, to advance to meet third-seed Atlético in the quarter-final on Sunday at TD Place Stadium in Ottawa.
“The players executed the game plan and our heart took us to a good game,” said York United head coach Benjamin Mora, of this charges.
“This is just one step in the right direction. We have to balance our emotions. We have not won the championship. We have lengthened the project to Sunday.”
The Tridents were in the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season but their stay this time was a short one for the 2021 league champions. The result Wednesday was a reversal of fortune from last season when the Tridents blanked York United 1-0 in the 4-5 playoff game at Starlight Stadium in Langford.
“We let the opportunity come and go tonight,” said Pacific FC head coach James Merriman.
“We’re disappointed after how hard we fought to get this opportunity by showing character and grit down the stretch [in a late-season revival to earn the fifth and final playoff berth]. And then not give ourselves the best chance tonight. We got punched [by the header goal at 47 minutes by Mexico 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup player Oswaldo León] and didn’t find the urgency to get back and lacked decisiveness and directness. They go forward in the playoffs and we think about next season.”
Syria-capped international Mo Babouli put it away for the Nine Stripes with a goal in injury time that cleanly beat PFC goalkeeper Sean Melvin.
In another opening playoff game under the Page system, second-seed Cavalry FC travels to Tim Hortons Field in Hamilton on Sunday to play top-seed Forge FC. The winner advances to host the CBC nationally-televised championship game Nov. 9. The loser drops to the semifinal Nov. 2 to await the winner of Sunday’s quarter-final between third-seed Atlético Ottawa and York United.
