April 19, 2025
Valour FC has earned its first point of the 2025 Canadian Premier League season, and it came in hostile territory against an elite squad and in dramatic fashion.
So, heavy emphasis on the ‘earned’ part of a 1-1 draw against Forge FC in Hamilton Saturday night.
Shaking off a lacklustre opener in a 2-nil loss to Pacific FC back on April 5th, Valour used the extra time during last week’s bye to regroup and reorganize — plus find some life in their game — and it certainly was on full display against Forge.
All that said, it took a superb save by veteran keeper Jonathan Viscosci on a penalty in the 84th minute to preserve the draw and a critical point. Dante Campbell had been fingered for a hand ball, setting up Daniel Nimick — perhaps the best penalty taker in the CPL — but Viscosi read the shot well, diving to his right before getting a hand on the attempt.
That critical stop came in the same half that Viscosi might like to have one back after he misplayed a high ball near the crossbar that then fell to the feet of Brian Wright, who equalized the game in the 50th minute.
“Not a lot of keepers — not a players themselves — can do something which cost them, giving up a little mistake, and then they don’t have the headspace to build back from it in the same game, let alone the next game,” said Valour striker Shaan Hundal. “It shows how much experience he has and how good a keeper he is to come up big for us after a mistake.
“But, I mean, we were never worried. Last year we made a lot of mistakes, we didn’t have the best results we wanted to. Having the core of our players back, we didn’t have our heads down after the first goal and we always have faith in Jono.”
Valour skipper Daryl Fordyce — sitting in for GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos as he served the second of a three-game suspension picked up in the final match of 2024 — praised the squad’s collective energy after the flat performance against Pacific.
“There was a lot of energy — that was the one thing we asked from the boys coming to a place like Forge where you need a lot of energy to get through a full 90 minutes,” he said. “The energy, I felt, was very good for us. We didn’t see the energy against Pacific.
“The point was good,” Fordyce added later. “It might not have been a point unless Viscosi makes a big save on the PK. We could have left here with nothing, which many teams do, which we have done in the past.
“For us, you can’t control the result. We have to gauge our performance. We have to see if we’ve improved since our last game and did we do the things we worked on in training that we prepared the players for? That’s how we’re going to look at it in looking at our performance — was it better than our last game?
“We’re going to do the exact same this week. We’ll analyze this game, and we’ll get back to training and we’ll push it into the next game.”
Valour managed 12 shots, three on net, and did generate some decent chances. Hundal opened the scoring in the 11th minute — his first of the season and the first conceded by Forge after posting two clean sheets — by burying a rebound after a Kris Twardek bicycle-kick attempt.
The point for Valour helps generate momentum now for the club as it now returns home to prepare for its 2025 home opener, with HFX Wanderers visiting Princess Auto Stadium on Friday, April 25th and a 7 p.m. start.
“Everyone in the locker room is happy,” said Hundal. “We came in here in the preseason and had a good result against them. We know the last game against Pacific was not us. That’s not what our team is made of — the energy levels, everything we showed top to bottom, that wasn’t us. It sucked that we had that week off because everyone wanted to show what we could do and so this was just a building block for the next game.
“We’re just excited to go home and play our first home game.”
‘V’ NOTES:
-Saturday’s match marked the Valour debut of fullback Zach Fernandez, the former member of the Wanderers and a key offseason acquisition by the club. He was solid in his Valour debut.
“Zach is a great character,” said Fordyce. “You see him around the locker room and on the training pitch and he brings that persona to games. He’s got a lot of energy. He’s tough. He’s very good on the ball. He and Kris have built a good relationship on that right-hand side. They both have pace; they both have power and they’re both of him are very fit.
“With Zach it was his first game with the club and it’s what we expected because it’s what he did for Halifax, his last club, and that’s why we went out of our way to try and get him for Valour.
“He’s going to continue to build on this performance.”
Forge FC 1 Valour FC 1
HAMILTON,ONTARIO, CANADA/Canadian Premier League /Apr.19th, 2025/ Jojo Yanjiao Qian/Forge FC
Goals
*Forge FC
*49:41′: Brian Wright
*Valour FC
*10:55′: Shaan Hundal (assist: Kris Twardek)
Card summary
*Forge FC
*36:02’: Alessandro Hojabprour (yellow, tactical foul)
Valour FC
44:00′: Raphael Ohin (yellow, reckless offence)
80:58′: Shaan Hundal (yellow, argument)
82:21: Penalty conceded by Dante Campbell — handball; penalty stopped
88:07′: Myles Morgan (yellow, reckless offence)
—
VALOUR STARTING XI (4-2-3-1)
GK – Jonathan Viscosi
D – Zach Fernandez
D – Rocco Romeo
D – Frankie Facchineri
D – Themi Antonoglou
MF – Raphael Ohin ©
MF – Diogo Ressurreicao
FW –
FW – Jordan Faria
FW – Kris Twardek
F – Shaan Hundal
—
Valour substitutions
71:00’: On Xavier Venancio; off Diogo Ressurreicao
71:08′: On Dante Campbell; off Bruno Figueiredo
87:39′: On Myles Morgan; off Shaan Hundal
94:30′: On Safwane Mlah; off Dante Campbell