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“It’s an amazing accomplishment in our first year with this first year league. We had six U-17 players feature today, which shows our young players are continuing to move forward.”
Those were the words of Vaughan Azzurri assistant coach Patrice Gheisar following their 2-1 win over Sigma FC in the League 1 Cup Final at BMO Field on Sunday afternoon, second half goals from Dena Iezady in the 61st minute and Joseph Di Chiara in the 77th minute cancelled out an early Emery Welshman strike only seven minutes into proceedings.
Although it’s cliche, this game was played between two sides that approach the game in the right way.
Both looking to keep possession, play passes into space and constantly switch the point of attack. Welshman’s goal was the perfect example of this, as a quick counterattack and combination of passes opened up the Vaughn defence allowing the in-form forward to fire past a diving Dayne St. Clair.
For Vaughn, they kept the first half competitive but the tide didn’t turn in their favour until after the break with the decision to bring on Canadian international Andrew Ornoch in partnership Iezady.
This was a planned tactic by the coaching staff to use the two as targets for midfielders, reference points that would allow for late runs and passes into space. The switch in approach paying dividends when Ornoch’s ability to draw in defenders opened space for Iezady to get behind the defence and level the game 1-1.
“Dena’s got the size and he had a good first half but he was on his own, very much isolated from the rest of the attack.” said Gheisar. “Bringing on Andrew allowed us to hold the ball up, link our midfield to the attack and allow us to get behind the Sigma defence.”
The ability to have better link up play is what ultimately won the game for the Azzurri, a defence splitting pass finding him in space allowing Di Chiara to put the ball past Sigma keeper Corey Marques for the game winner.
Di Chiara was nominated as Man of the Match, but as the team celebrated post game he was all about the team accomplishment.
“It’s amazing,” said Di Chiara “It’s about time we win something. We’ve had a lot of letdowns this year and ending the season off with a championship couldn’t feel better.”
Overall this game encompassed everything that League1 Ontario pushing for, two teams full of quality young Canadian players that have a future in the game.
For Sigma, as has been the case for much of the tail end of the season, NCAA commitments left them unable to field its strongest side as they were without key players and known commodities like Cyle Larin and Kwame Awuah.
However, this game was a reward to young players that filled in admirably during a season full of injuries and school commitments like midfielder Manny Morgado or others like goalkeeper Corey Marques or forward Marcel Zajac being given a chance as the future of the team. It was many of these young players that got the club to the point of challenging for a cup, an experience that will put them in good stead next season.
As for Vaughan, under the guidance of head coach Carmine Isacco, they’ve incorporated young talent from his program at York University with more experienced and familiar names. Key players to the team such as former Toronto FC midfielder Matt Stinson, former TFC Academy prospect Jonathan Lao and Canadian international Ornoch.
That said, it was the play of its young talent that Gheisar believes is even more vital for the future of not only Vaughan Azzurri but League 1 Ontario.
“It’s great for our club and all of our youth teams to understand we’re involved in a really great environment in League1,” said Gheisar. “We’re going to continue to develop players here where there’s competition and goals set for them.”
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