"Everything was perfect," João Morelli said with a smile as he looked back on his 2021 Canadian Premier League season with the Halifax Wanderers, four years later in an interview with CanPL.ca.
"That year in my career was the best of my life."
After Wanderers fans got a taste of what their new Brazilian forward could offer them at the Island Games in 2020, 2021 was Morelli's breakout campaign. He scored 14 goals in 21 matches, winning the Golden Boot and Player of the Year honours despite the Wanderers missing the playoffs.
His 14 goals set a new CPL single-season record as well, which nobody matched until this past weekend, when Atlético Ottawa's Sam Salter scored his 14th of the season against Vancouver FC in the same number of games as Morelli, 21. With seven games left in the regular season, Salter is expected to set a new record as he too looks to take home the Golden Boot for the first time in his career.
The pair were teammates in Halifax in 2021 and 2022, though Morelli missed most of the 2022 season with an ACL injury. In 2023, Morelli was teammates with current Wanderers striker Tiago Coimbra, a fellow Brazilian, who is second to Salter in the race for the Golden Boot on 11 goals.
"He was already really good when he came to Halifax," Morelli said of Salter, adding that he's been keeping up with his historic chase for number 15. "Obviously, he was young, I think it was his first professional season, so we knew that he had really good qualities but we know that it would take two or three years for him to get more experience and be an outstanding player in the league.
"I've been cheering for him, and also Tiago, I like both of them. It's really good to see that the league's growing, it shows that if people are catching up to my records and everyone else's records, then the league is growing. I really like the league, so it's really nice to see."
Morelli saying that he "really likes the league" is a bit of an understatement. When asked further about his four years in Halifax, he was emotional and unwavering about his love for the city.
"It's really special, [Wanderers Grounds is] not a big stadium so people don't understand how you can feel the heat from the crowd," he recalled. "The supporters are really amazing, the first time I played there I scored two goals and when I saw the Kitchen I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is real’. When we stepped on the field to start playing the first game I had goosebumps, I was like, ‘Wow, it is really the way that they told me’.
"Every goal there, I remember as if it was yesterday."
Coimbra recently scored the first hat-trick in Wanderers' history, a feat that Morelli admits he wishes he had achieved after scoring eight braces for the club — including in his first game in Halifax, and in one of his last as well.
It was away from home, however, where Morelli believes he had the best moment of his time with the Wanderers.
Morelli was Atlético Ottawa's worst nightmare, scoring eight times in eight appearances against the club — the most he scored against any one opponent in his career. Two of them came on Sept. 11, 2021, in a dramatic game in Ottawa that he and the Wanderers faithful remember fondly. After the visitors took the lead through a Morelli strike from the penalty spot, Malcolm Shaw scored a few minutes after halftime to tie things up at 1-1.
Needing a hero, Halifax's Brazilian maestro stepped up to win the game for the Wanderers in the 89th minute with a powerful strike into the roof of the net that goalkeeper Dylon Powley couldn't keep out, before the whole team wheeled away in celebration.
Assisting that goal against his future club? None other than Sam Salter.
Unfortunately, in the second game of Halifax's 2022 season, Morelli suffered an ACL injury at that very stadium that would sideline him until July 2023.
Morelli scored four goals in nine games in a special comeback with the Wanderers, before another injury in September kept him out of the remainder of the season and playoffs — and ultimately ended his career. These days, Morelli is working in construction with his family in São Paulo. He and his wife Bruna recently welcomed their second son to the world, and he joked that there's "a lot of work, more in the house than outside."
In a pause between questions, Morelli took a second to reminisce on his playing days.
"I still follow the league. Honestly, I miss it," he said. "It's a different stage of my life, but it was good while it lasted.
"Halifax is one of my favourite places in the world, so I was very happy there. Apart from football, it was really good in my social life, and I made a lot of friends there."
He still calls those friends and former teammates his second family, including the duo of current CPL stars — Salter and potentially Coimbra — vying to break his record.
"Scoring goals is not only about quality, sometimes you have to find ways to score goals, even when you're losing or when you're drawing," Morelli said. "I've been watching the goals they've been scoring, I feel like I was a little bit like them when I was playing, so it's really nice to see that they've been playing really well."
Salter will have his next chance to make CPL history on Saturday night, when Atlético Ottawa host Pacific FC.