| Final Score: Valour FC 0-0 York United FC Goalscorers: N/A Game of the 2025 season: 74 CPL Match: 669 |
Match in a minute or less
Valour and York United were unable to break each other open in a hard-fought defensive battle at Princess Auto Stadium on Sunday, leaving both to share the spoils in a 0-0 draw.
Both teams had decent opportunities to win this match, as York had some strong half-chances in the first half, while Valour threatened from a few second-half set-pieces, but in the end, neither was able to find the decisive breakthrough, combining for just three shots on target throughout the 90 minutes.
Because of that, both teams will leave this game wanting more, as York missed a chance to provisionally climb into third in the CPL table, while Valour will lament not being able to close the gap between them and fifth-place Halifax to nine points.
Three Observations
Valour, York unable to find decisive breakthrough in cagey match:
One of the biggest challenges teams face in this league often comes later in the campaign, where they start to see teams for the third, fourth and fifth times, depending on their schedule.
Once you see teams that many times, it can be hard to catch them by surprise, leading to cagier matches.
Certainly, this game felt like one of those matches where familiarity led to more of a conservative matchup, especially in terms of what each team was able to produce offensively, which was a surprise to see from two teams that scored a combined eight goals in their first two meetings of 2025.
On the ball, a lot of good play happened between both boxes, as seen by the numbers. There, each team completed a high number of passes, with Valour completing 359 and York 509, and both had a high pass completion rate, with Valour at 89.3% and York at 90.9%.
Once the ball got close to the other goal, though, play slowed down. As a result, Valour had just 14 touches in York's box, and York just 16 in Valour's, giving an idea of where each came up short in this match - they couldn't find a rhythm in and around each other's goal.
To be fair, credit has to be given to both sides for how they defended on the day. In particular, that Valour was able to pick up just their second clean sheet against a York team with the third-most goals in the CPL was quite huge for the hosts, who allowed just 0.39 xG on seven shots, which is not a bad showing at all.
Meanwhile York didn't put up a bad performance themselves, either, keeping Valour to 0.58 xG from nine shots, although they'll be a bit frustrated that 0.53 of that xG came in the second half, where Valour looked the likelier of the two to win - further to that point, York had just one shot worth 0.03 xG in the second stanza, although it's worth noting that their defenders did well to respond to that Valour test.
Overall, though, despite this match being a tale of two halves, one where York was stronger early on before Valour pushed late, each side's defensive performances meant that a draw was a fair result, making it unsurprising to see it finish that way in the end.
Valour's formation shift helps create new defensive growth:
One big thing that stands out from this Valour clean sheet, however, isn't that they got one, but how they got it, as they continued to experiment with a new-look 5-3-2 formation.
After pulling out this back five last week against Ottawa, putting up a good performance against one of the top teams in the league, they continued with that 5-3-2 formation this week, showing more growth once again.
That's huge, as Valour's defending has remained a big issue all season long, which is why they entered this weekend sitting last in the CPL with 43 goals conceded - that's six more than second-last Vancouver.
Granted, a big issue for them hasn't necessarily been their defensive shape, but the timing of the goals they've conceded, as they've had a habit of conceding on either side of half time, and late in matches, which is never ideal. Then, to that point, they've also let certain games snowball away from them, further inflating their defensive record, as they've allowed some matches to compound and get worse than they should've.
Because of that, it's hard to say they necessarily fixed those issues by changing the formation, but it's certainly helped them find a bit of stability, and perhaps that was a key ingredient needed to avoid conceding those frustrating goals.
In particular, the big thing that stands out is the way they're able to protect their box with the presence of three centre backs, as the trio of Gianfranco Facchineri, Rocco Romeo, and Kelsey Egwu have given them real size to defend their area, and are supported by two athletic wing backs in the form of Kris Twardek and Themi Antonoglou.
That ended up being a big help for their new goalkeeper, Emil Gazdov, as the 2024 CPL goalkeeper of the year was offered good protection in his first game with Valour since being loaned from CF Montréal this past week. Even though he'll have known this York team well from his time with Pacific FC, given that he hasn't played much in the past 12 months, having the protection Valour offered in front of him was massive - he did only have to make two saves in this game, after all.
To that point about how Valour were able to protect their box, consider this - York had nearly double the final third entries as Valour in this game (50-27), yet as mentioned earlier, only had two more touches in Valour's box than Valour had in theirs.
Now, the big goal for Valour will be to build a bit of momentum defensively, as the best way for them to build on this rare clean sheet would be to get another one in rapid succession. Perhaps, with Gazdov's arrival and this new formation change, they can start to become a bit more of a defensive force the rest of the season, which would go a long way towards at least having a shot at the playoffs, even if they sit 11 points back of fifth place after this draw.
To do that, of course, they'll need to score some goals, too - although it's worth noting that this formation does also make Valour more dangerous on set-pieces, with the extra big body they have at the back, although they'll admit they've got some work to do in open play, as they didn't threaten York's defence enough from those situations.
Otherwise, though, there's lots to like with this switch, so look for Valour to keep growing in this new-look formation.
"The clean sheet was important, as we haven't had many," Valour FC head coach, Philip Dos Santos said. "I think that even in the last game, we were playing against a good Ottawa team, and we kept them far from our goal. We know that we're always going to have to concede a bit of territory in these games, but we built on that today."
York shows impact of newfound depth:
Ahead of this game, York made some small tweaks to their lineup, as they had four new faces who didn't feature in their loss against Forge last week - some came in due to injuries, and others for rotation purposes.
Despite that, York didn't really miss a beat on both sides of the ball, at least other than their struggles at turning their possession (57.3%) and all of their final third entries into box actions.
To that last point, though, they were also able to use their depth to at least try and rectify those problems later in the game, as they brought Gabriel Bitar, Adonijah Reid and Shaan Hundal into this match off the bench, completely changing up their frontline.
That's key to note, as they haven't always been keen to do that in games, especially when it comes to taking off striker Julian Altobelli. Granted, given their offensive record, it's hard to blame them for that (and Altobelli has played a big role in their offensive success), but that shows why it was interesting to see them be as aggressive as they were with their offensive changes in this game.
In particular, that they were willing to bring Hundal in for Altobelli after just 66 minutes stands out, as that was just the third time in CPL play that Altobelli exited a game he started before the 74th minute. It was a bold move to make, but given that he was struggling to make an impact, it was a fair gamble to make, even if it didn't pay off for York.
Yet, it's something to watch going forward, as York now has the luxury to make aggressive changes like that from match to match and within games, as they can shake things up when they don't like what they see. Having completed the third of three summer signings earlier this week with the arrival of Jesse Costa, who joins Hundal and Leonel López, they're now as deep as they've been all year, and that's given them some true selection headaches.
Despite that, however, they continue to stay true to their identity, no matter who is on the field, which is a huge detail.
Now, the big challenge will be to use that improved squad competition to their advantage, as they look to consistently field the lineup that can best push them to victories. The good news? They've got a great chance to see what that looks like in their next match, as they can add in a few new faces to spark this group from a draw to a victory, as they look to avenge this draw in a home match against Pacific next week.
"It just shows the competitiveness that each and every player has," York's head coach, Mauro Eustáquio, said. "I think something that we've lacked in the past is having that depth of good players being able to play in different positions and doing very well."
"I'm extremely happy with the squad that we've that we've built, I want to continue to have these good headaches, I want to keep the players fresh, mentally and physically."
What They Said
"(Formations) are like a blanket, if you want to cover your head, you show your feet, and in football, if you defend the width better, maybe it's harder to be a bit more effective in the press higher up the pitch, as that requires a lot from the two midfielders. So there's always something that you're going to be giving away in each formation. For us, we just need to embrace the moment that we're in and see what the team needs, and I feel that this back five has suited the team." Valour FC head coach Philip Dos Santos
"It's never easy playing teams twice, let alone four times. But then, it's up to us to come up with new strategies and different personnel to exploit the spaces that we saw and that we train on. We attacked the right spaces; we were just slow in finding the final details, and that's on us. We'll go back to review this, because we want to go into games to get all three points, and that was the mentality coming here, so it's a tough one to swallow, but we can't be disappointed with the effort; the guys did everything that they could, we got another clean sheet, but it was just the final details." -- York United head coach Mauro Eustáquio
CanPL.ca Player of the Match
Frank Sturing, York United FC
Sturing was a force at the back for York in this game, especially defensively, where he had three tackles (including one last-ditch tackle), one block, two clearances, two recoveries and won 13 out of 18 duels.
Then, on the ball, he was also quite dangerous, too, making 73 out of 78 passes (94%), including eight passes into the final third, while also creating one chance and completing one dribble to round off a balanced performance.
What’s next?
Valour head out on the road next week, as they travel to Halifax to take on the Wanderers at Wanderers Grounds on Friday, August 22nd (5:00 p.m. CT/7:00 p.m. AT). Meanwhile, York will return home to take on Pacific at York Lions Stadium on Sunday, August 24th (1:00 p.m. PT/4:00 p.m. ET).
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