Story of the Match

Pacific FC’s match against Forge FC on Sunday felt eerily similar to the match last weekend against Cavalry FC. The only difference is that the equalizing goal never came against Forge.

Forge came out hotter from the first whistle and hit the bar before opening the scoring in the 17th minute. But from that point forward, most of the match was played in Forge’s half of the pitch. Over the course of the 90 minutes, Pacific created the better chances but it again felt like the play around their opponent’s box wasn’t quite done with the required purpose from the Tridents.

In the end, an equalizer just wouldn’t come. The Tridents now embark on their first road trip of the season after spending the entire month of April at home. Still just a point off the top of the table, there’s definitely a sense that the Tridents could be even better off through three CPL matches played.

Tactics Talk

It was a classic 4-3-3 from Pacific on Sunday. The most notable element of the team’s shape in the match was how high Kunle Dada-Luke pushed up the pitch. The image below shows each player’s average position over the 90 minutes. Dada-Luke’s average position is just about the third-highest in the team, right next to Josh Heard’s.

This lop-sided shape is made possible through the defensive qualities of the three deepest PFC players: Amer Didic, Thomas Meilluer-Giguère and Georges Mukumbilwa. The shape of the midfield three is also interesting given the narrow (almost straight line) grouping, as well as Steffen Yeates’ position as the highest midfielder. Yeates has started the last two matches in Manny Aparicio’s absence and hasn’t put a foot wrong, but it’ll be tough to keep Aparicio’s name off the teamsheet once he’s ready to play a full match again.

Looking Ahead

As mentioned before, next up is a trip to the nation’s capital to play Atlético Ottawa next Saturday. There’s a bitter taste left over from the club’s last trip to Ottawa, which was the end of the road in the 2022 playoffs for Pacific. The best thing to do now is use this past match and that one from last season as motivation to get back to winning ways in the the league.

Looking just ahead of that, the next time we’ll see the Tridents back at Starlight Stadium is the mid-week Canadian Championship Quarter-Final fixture against Burnaby’s semi-pro club TSS FC Rovers. That match will be a “Celebration of BC Soccer” when the League1 BC side comes to the Island on Wednesday, May 10.

Favourite Moment

When the feeling walking off the pitch is “we should’ve won that one”, there’s not much from the action that brought joy.

What did however, was the ceremony at halftime celebrating Brad Norris-Jones for his service to the club. Norris-Jones has been with Pacific since Day 1 and was an absolutely integral part of the club’s success over the years. He’ll be missed around the club, even if he is terrible at scoring penalties against his younger staff members and won’t shut up about pickleball.

Favourite Photo

PFC Standout Player: Georges Mukumbilwa

Although the match itself was frustrating, Mukumbilwa’s performance from left-back was excellent. It continues a positive trend for Mukumbilwa in 2023, as he’s been solid in all four of Pacific’s game so far this season both as a natural right-back and inverted left-back. Most notably during that stretch, he was the man to score the winning penalty against Cavalry FC and send Pacific into the quarter-finals of the Canadian Championship.

In this match against Forge, Mukumbilwa was rock solid defensively. The 23-year-old won possession back nine times (the most in the match), as well as winning 100% of his tackles and six duels. As noted before, with Dada-Luke often pushing forward and joining the attack, the balance Mukumbilwa provides by maintaining his position is crucial to Pacific’s shape in possession.

Going forward on Sunday, Mukumbilwa also created one goal-scoring chance, had a 90% pass accuracy in the final third, and had the second-most touches and second-most final third entries on the team. Mukumbilwa’s combination play with Ayman Sellouf on the left wing also showed the positive nature to his play on Sunday as he moved the ball up the pitch with purpose (16 passes forward to Sellouf, the second-highest passing combination in the match).

Scoring Summary

17’ – Forge FC – Woobens Pacius

Statistics

Possession: PFC 52 % – FOR 48 %

Shots: PFC 15 – FOR 7

Shots on Target: PFC 2 – FOR 2

Saves: PFC 1 – FOR 2

Fouls: PFC 10 – FOR 9

Offsides: PFC 1 – FOR 1

Corners: PFC 8 – FOR 5

Cautions

57’ – Woobens Pacius – Yellow

68’ – Sean Young – Yellow

88’ – Triston Henry – Yellow