"We're not going to quit": Vancouver FC aiming to use first Salish Sea Derby win as catalyst for turnaround
Vancouver FC has ticked off a lot of key milestones in year one of existence as a club.
Their first goal, first win, first home win - those are some of the important memories that the club will take away from their 2023 campaign, their maiden voyage as a CPL team.
Yet, they may have completed the sweetest achievement of them all this past weekend - a first derby win.
In the third edition of the Salish Sea Derby, they hosted Pacific FC in a crucial clash at Langley’s Willoughby Community Park, one where both teams were eager to battle for the crown of BC, currently held by Pacific.
But while Vancouver entered the game filled with optimism, they knew that a tall mountain awaited them. Not only had Pacific claimed the first two derbies, doing so by a combined score of 7-3, but both teams couldn’t be any further from the other in the table, either
With Pacific sitting at the top of the table with 32 points, while Vancouver found themselves in last place with just 14 points, that gulf just showed the difference in both teams' seasons up to the stage.
We got duelling tifos from the @LakeSideBuoys and @FV_Fanatics today to kick off the Salish Sea Derby
— Alexandre Gangué-Ruzic (@AlexGangueRuzic) August 19, 2023
On the LSB’s side, they got a tifo to honour Manny Aparicio’s late winner and celebration in the first-ever derby
On FVF’s side, they got a nice Pride tifo for the Pride match pic.twitter.com/iSJVu1FOPj
Yet, that didn’t faze Vancouver. Despite that gap, they felt that they had what it took to dethrone Pacific, and certainly professed as much with some of the posts they were putting out on social media in the week leading up to it.
And then in the game itself, they went out and backed up that talk. It was a topsy-turvy game, one that had a couple of lead changes, but in the end, Vancouver did what they needed to, picking up a crucial 3-2 win, thanks to a crucial late brace from Gabriel Bitar.
All culminated in a special 87th-minute winner from Bitar, leading to a big celebration from Vancouver’s players, staff and supporters, one that the Vancouver FC players and staff won’t forget anytime soon.
“Derbies, they mean more than anything else,” Bitar explained after the match. “So to win this one, (especially) seeing that we hadn’t won in a while, this one was always going to feel extra special.”
“I'm so touched,” Vancouver’s head coach, Afshin Ghotbi, added. “First, there was the spirit of the team to come back after leading the game, we thought we were in control, but to take two goals in the fashion that we did and then bounce back from that took tremendous belief and confidence. And for Gabriel Bitar to come and do that off the bench? I'm really happy for him and happy for all the players.”
“Secondly, I’m really proud of our fans because, through a lot of difficult times, they've stuck with this team, they've supported this team, and to see them so happy after this match means a lot to me. This derby is a special derby for so many different reasons, and I think this victory will just add more history and texture for future derbies, and Canadian football needs these kinds of derbies and these stories.”
Yet, that’s why derbies are so special. A chance to battle for local bragging rights, these games always seem to mean more, for a multitude of reasons.
It doesn’t matter what form a team is in, or the recent results they’ve had, it feels like everything resets in a derby, and Vancouver proved that in this game, giving their fans something to cheer about.
Now, they’ll look to build off this.
It’s no secret, it’s been a tough maiden campaign for the team. Their record speaks for itself in that regard. At the same time, this is a team that has grown a lot.
Thanks to some key arrivals, and the growth of some players, this isn’t the same team that kicked off the season.
They feel like a much more complete outfit than the one that first saw the field for the first time earlier this year, and want to now prove that.
Therefore, look for them to build off this. This isn’t the first special victory they’ve had this year, but they’re yet to win consecutive games this season, so that’s something that they’ll look to change now.
Sometimes, the big difference between the top teams and those lower in the table is consistency, and that’s not lost on Vancouver, which is why that’s something they’re now looking to change.
They certainly believe that they’ve now got the squad to, at least, so that’s something going for them.
“There were several victories we had that I felt would maybe do the same thing,” Ghotbi admitted. “The victory against Forge at home with almost a U21 team, the victory against Halifax, but unfortunately, it didn't happen. But I think because now we have more experience in the group, we have more depth in the group, we have a little bit better balance in the group, so I believe that this victory will give an enormous amount of confidence and belief, which is necessary for us to come back from such a bad position in a table.”
“Yeah, obviously we've had trouble doing that throughout the season, but this one feels different,” Bitar added. “This is our first win since we acquired all these new players, so you never know, this could be something that we can build off, and who knows what happens at the end of the season? I mean, we're gonna keep going until we're out, we're actually doing a great job of pushing week in and week out, knowing that we still have a chance, so yeah, we’ll move to next week and take it game-by-game.”
Because of that, don’t look for this Vancouver team to quit down the stretch here. They know that making the playoffs is a tall ask - they sit 12 points off the final spot with eight games to go - but they know that they can leave their stamp on that race.
Still to play everyone in the league at least once (and sixth place York twice!), they can really wreak some havoc on the table with some timely wins here.
For example, say they nab more points off Pacific in their fourth and final Salish Sea Derby of 2023 in September, and then Pacific misses out on a title or a playoff spot by a few points? That’d be priceless.
So while the race for the 2023 playoffs may seem a bit out of reach, they’re looking to play their role, knowing that any other big victories they claim between now and the end of the season may not just have value for this year, but help set key building blocks to use for next year, too.
“One of the things I've always been proud of is the fact that we have a very exciting young group of players with a great appetite to learn and to develop themselves,” Ghotbi explained. “But more importantly, they're all winners, they want to win. None of them are happy about where we are, and they wanted to do something about it. It’s been unfortunate because we've been very close in the last four or five games to get results, but the results had not come, and many groups would have given up by now.”
“And then I think from ownership to our front office, our coaching staff, everyone, they all have the hearts of warriors, and have a temperament that doesn't allow us to quit. So we're not going to quit, we're going to fight until the last breath until mathematically we are out of it, and we're going to make every game very difficult for others.”
“We just want to win every single game possible to give ourselves a chance,” Bitar finished. “Everybody wants to win, obviously, but when you're at the bottom, you can't kind of hope for other results, you just have to win games to get out of there, and that’s what we’re focusing on right now.”
