The unexpected is what cup play in soccer is famous for. The amateur TSS Rovers of Burnaby almost played giant killers for the second consecutive year, taking professional club Pacific FC of the Canadian Premier League to penalty kicks in the opening round of the Canadian Championship at Starlight Stadium.
PFC captain Josh Heard decided it in the seventh round of the shootout to end a night of high tension as the Tridents needed a goal by 26-time Trinidad and Tobago-capped Reon Moore on the last play of injury time to tie the game 1-1 and send it to penalty kicks.
The Rovers stunned the crowd of 2,126 by scoring on their only shot on goal in the 76th minute through Michael Hennessy.
James Merriman made a gut-level move for the shootout, replacing starting goalkeeper Sean Melvin with Emil Gazdov, who came in cold. It proved to be a shrewd intuition as Gazdov made two crucial saves.
The Rovers’ performance followed the League1 B.C. club’s 3-1 victory over Valour FC of Winnipeg last year in the opening round of the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup, this nation’s answer to the FA Cup in England. For a while Wednesday, it appeared they might have avenged the Rovers’ 2-0 loss to PFC in last year’s quarter-finals.
The massive underdog Rovers played their part to perfection last night. PFC controlled possession to a ridiculous extent with TSS happy to sit in a defensive shell, awaiting their chance. And that’s exactly what it was, one chance, and they took it to take the lead.
TSS goalkeeper Justyn Sandhu parried two PFC shots in the early going but the Tridents could not unlock the Rovers defence any further than that in the scoreless first half. PFC striker Andrei Tircoveanu, who has played in Cup competitions in his native Romania, rattled a shot off the post early in the second half. Moore shot over the net at point-blank range in injury time in what looked to be PFC’s last-gasp chance. But it wasn’t, as Moore scored in the 98th minute.
The Tridents advance, by the narrowest of margins, to play Atletico Ottawa, 7-0 winner over Valour FC in an all-CPL first-round game, in the quarter-final round. The dates of the two-legged set are to be announced. The other semifinal on that side of the draw features Cavalry FC of the CPL against the Vancouver Whitecaps of MLS.
The annual tournament features the three Canadian teams in Major League Soccer — CF Montreal, Toronto FC and defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps — the eight CPL pro teams and the champions of the mostly-amateur League1 B.C., League1 Ontario and League1 Quebec. The 2024 Canadian Championship winner will earn a berth in the 2025 CONCACAF Champions Cup.
With a league game upcoming Saturday against York United, Merriman rested several of his regulars at the start for the TSS match before substitutions in the second half. He said after the game his team needed to be better: “We made the game a lot tighter than we needed to.”
