Has Pacific turned a corner offensively?
It’s too early to say ‘yes’ quite definitively yet, but they’re certainly on a good track, as they’ve scored seven goals in their past two games, nearly matching their season total of eight from the first 12 games in just 180 minutes of action.
Powering that offensive outburst, however, is a surprising face, as Yann Toualy has scored four of those seven goals. He found one goal in Pacific’s 4-4 draw with Vancouver FC on June 27th before following that up with a hat trick in Pacific’s 3-2 win vs. the Halifax Wanderers this past weekend.
A first-year professional who only joined the club in April, it’s been a dream start to his Pacific career for the 24-year-old, who is rewarding his club’s faith in signing him as a late bloomer, as evidenced by him completing just the 10th hat trick in CPL history.
Not only has he injected life into Pacific’s struggling offence, but he’s brought an important energy to the team, too, playing each game with a smile — one that he certainly beamed a few times after his hat trick, a sign that the man they call "Chef" is happy with what he's been cooking.
“It’s a perfect weekend,” Toualy said after the match in French, his smile still beaming. “For the hat trick, I was in the right positions, I hit the ball towards goal with confidence, and I can’t describe the emotions. I’m so happy.”
While he’ll say he was just in the right place at the right time for the goals, make no mistake: this has been building for the former CS Saint-Laurent attacker. He famously set up Rickson Aristilde for a goal against MLS outfit Toronto FC during his team’s magical run through the 2024 Canadian Championship last year, an action that likely caught clubs like Pacific’s attention. Now up to 12 appearances for just under 450 minutes with Pacific, he’s really blossomed into his own since mid-June, when he made his first CPL start in a 3-1 loss to York.
Since then, Toualy has started four straight matches for Pacific, and based on his last two games, it’ll be hard for head coach James Merriman to consider taking him out of the lineup anytime soon.
Even if he had not scored these goals, he’s been a lively presence since becoming a starter, and that’s brought important energy to a Pacific team that sorely needed it.
Just look at his overall numbers, which reflect his strong play. He won’t keep scoring on every shot he takes, having scored on four straight attempts, but he’ll want to keep firing shots, given that he’s already third on his team in shot attempts behind Marco Bustos and Aly Ndom despite his limited minutes.
In particular, the big thing he’ll want to keep doing is to creating quality chances, as he’s third on Pacific in shots inside the box with nine (and is only two shots off first place Ndom), and is third in xG with 1.82 (and is still sixth in non-penalty xG when taking away the penalty that completed his hat trick vs. the Wanderers). All of that is quite impressive when considering those are raw numbers, not per-90 rates.
That, however, comes down to his ability to get to those dangerous areas of the pitch. There’s a reason why he’s already third on Pacific in touches inside the box and is second in dribbles completed, as he’s done a great job of pushing his side to get to the areas of the pitch they haven’t gotten to without enough regularity.
“That's who he is as a footballer, that's why we brought him in,” Merriman said of Toualy. “He has personality, he's dynamic, he wants to attack, he's creative. We're trying to get him up to the level of what we need in our expectations, without the ball in our structure, and how he plays in our structure and challenging him in that way.
“He’s had some really good days, and some days where he's frustrated, but I think we're seeing the potential quite clearly in the last two matches for him.”
Now, the big key for Toualy will be to build on this stretch. Currently sitting as Pacific’s co-leader in goals with those four, he wants to keep this momentum going as his team hits a pivotal stretch of their season.
At the end of the day, a stretch like this can almost be the easy part, and is almost expected; sometimes, as a player, you can just have those runs where everything you touch turns to gold. Now, the onus will be on Toualy to stay consistent, which is the hardest skill for any attacker to have, and is what distinguishes those who score with regularity from the others.
The good news, however, is that Toualy’s aware of that, noting that it’s been one of the quickest lessons he’s learned in his first year as a professional.
“Being a professional player, there is a lot of pressure, and you have to not just be good, but be consistently good,” Toualy offered. “And I’ve tried to apply that mentality as much as I can, no matter the situation. I’ve always had that mindset since I was young. I’m hard on myself, I always want more, I’ve always aspired for this, so I’ve got to be consistent, as this isn’t enough for me, so I want to keep working hard and doing my part, I want to achieve more.”
As seen by the numbers above, he’s already been doing the right things on the ball, so the blueprint is there for him. The goals are just gravy, if anything.
“After my first (pro) goal, I put it in my head, I've only scored one goal,” Toualy continued. “At the end of the day, I'm still in my first year as a professional in the CPL. Nobody knows me. I still have to keep going. Don't think I'm (special), because I scored one goal, that's a trap. It's not enough for me (to score one), I want more and more every day, I know I can do it, so I have to keep going like this.”
From there, Toualy will be hoping that he can help push Pacific back to the playoffs, as they remain six points behind York United in that fifth and final playoff spot as of writing.
Having qualified for the postseason in five straight years, they’d love to keep that streak going, but they’ll need to keep the goals flowing to keep that a possibility.
Two tough games await them next, as they travel to Hamilton to take on Forge before welcoming league leaders Atlético Ottawa to Starlight Stadium the week after that, but that’ll be a good test for this team, one filled with confidence after a big victory over the third-place Wanderers.
“At this point in the season, we want to go to the playoffs,” Toualy said. “This is only our third win, so we had to change something, we had to adapt, so we found a good change that could work for us, so we’ll have to keep going.”
