The storylines continue to unfold in an all-too familiar manner for Valour FC -- and it's costing Winnipeg's Canadian Premier League squad valuable points in the standings early in the season.
Valour fell 1-nil to HFX Wanderers in front of 2,398 Friday night at Princess Auto Stadium in the club's home opener, extending their season-opening winless streak to three matches with one draw against two losses.
What is especially painful -- aside from being blanked for the second time in three appearances and in the wake of what was a solid performance last weekend in a 1-1 road draw against Forge FC -- is the winning goal came late, with Vitor Dias creating some magic in the 90th minute as he fed a pass into the box to Tiago Coimbra who then returned a perfect back-heel pass that was pounded into the net behind Jonathan Viscosi.
"Obviously, conceding in the last minute to lose the game is now way you want the game to go," said Valour assistant coach Daryl Fordyce in his post-match media conference. "It was always going to be one opportunity for either team to win the game and when you look back on the play we let their player play the ball in, he ran in and wasn't followed and he scored.
"It was poor on our end in the defending side."
Valour had long stretches of possession but couldn't capitalize, firing 12 shots, four on target, while generating seven corners. Still the expected goal total was just .67 for Valour and .75 for Wanderers and the home side's inability to finish was an Achilles heel.
And, yes, for Valour faithful that certainly sounds familiar.
"We did well to get through them and around them at times. We just weren't clinical enough in and around the box," said Fordyce. "We need to get more men to the box because it gives us greater advantage, greater probabilities of the ball falling to one of us.
"We weren't clinical enough whenever we had those opportunities to go that little more intense in that final third. It's frustrating but we will get back to the training ground and we'll work on it. It's the one thing we've identified right after the game."
Valour is home again in its next match, with Vancouver FC visiting next Saturday, May 3rd with a 6 p.m. start.
"We're disappointed," said fullback Zach Fernandez, who was playing against his old club for the first time. "We have good players and when we don't meet our standard everybody is disappointed.
"It's the start of the season, we've got to stay positive but for sure we're disappointed."
"We have to bounce back, for sure," added Fordyce. There's not many teams that go through a season and don't lose games. We've lost our first home game. We've got to bounce back fast for our next home game.
"We can't dwell on it. This is football. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some, but you've got to get back the next day and get to work and do your job."
‘V’ NOTES:
-Friday’s loss was the third and final match of Valour GM and head coach Phillip Dos Santos three-game suspension dating back to a red card from last season's finale.
Valour FC 0 HFX Wanderers FC 1
Goals
Valour FC
None
Wanderers FC89:43′: Vitor Dias (assist: Tiago Coimbra)
Card summary
**Valour FC
**22:15': Raphael Ohin (yellow, reckless offence)
57:32′: Xavier Venancio (yellow, simulation)
**Wanderers FC
**70:32': Yohan Bai (yellow, simulation)86:20': Vitor Dias (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 – Xavier Venancio
MF – Bruno Figueiredo
FW – Jordan Faria
FW – Kris Twardek
F – Shaan Hundal
—
Valour substitutions
68:11’: On Myles Morgan; off Xavier Venancio
73:53': On Diogo Ressurreicao; off Shaan Hundal
80:55': On Safwane Mlah; off Raphael Ohin
80:58': On Jevontae Layne; off Kris Twardek