By Ottawa Sports Pages, for Ottawa TFC Soccer Club
It was a historic season for Ottawa TFC Soccer Club. Two teams won Ontario Player Development League Charity Shield titles for the first time in one year, and Ottawa TFC was the only club in the province to win more than one.
But you won’t find Ottawa TFC General Manager Pavel Cancura mapping out the triumphant parade route along Trim Road. He outright refuses to trot out trophies and brandish them as proof of superiority.
“It’s very easy to start pounding your chest and saying, ‘We’re the best, look at us!’” sighs the lead architect of the reds’ rise. “We’ve got to keep our eye on the right things. It’s the work we put in and the way we go about it and the values and effort that we cling to. We believe and hope that will yield results. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. This year it did.
“The thing that I’ve been imploring is to please don’t ever slip into that and think that winning is the focus. It isn’t. It’s a wonderful experience and a wonderful byproduct of a lot of good things and a lot of good work, and that those are the things we highlight and we focus on.”
Make no mistake, Cancura is immensely proud of his club’s accomplishments this season. But his lens looks wider than Ottawa TFC stamps on Shields. Among those achievements:
- When the last weekend of the regular season arrived and all four OTFC OPDL teams U14 and above were in contention for a playoff berth, Cancura felt it was already a home run of a season. Consistency is king, he says.
- Behind those top teams were a pair of Regional champions in the U17 girls’ and U14 boys’ categories, alongside numerous other competitive groups who had very strong years in the EOSL.
- The club’s Junior Academy is brimming with exceptional young players and staff, while the Sports-Études program at Garneau high school has doubled in size and hopes to expand its capacity.
- And Ottawa TFC’s overall number of players continues to reach record levels, a reflection that more people want to be a part of the experience at the club.
“By all the metrics that matter, it was a good year,” Cancura concludes. “That’s what I’m really proud of.”
Blooming leaders
Beyond the scoreline, there were many other signs of prosperity that propelled the victorious squads.
The head coaches of OTFC’s U15 girls’ and boys’ champs, Jordan Lundin and Cian Lynch, are pulling the league’s average age of bench bosses way down. It’s not uncommon for observers to be taken aback initially because the 20-something skippers simply don’t match the picture they’ve steadily seen on the sidelines for many years.
“They’re some of our best coaches and they’re already so experienced,” reflects Cancura, who delights in seeing strong teenage leaders emerge as they guide some of the club’s youngest. He feels homegrown coaches can best transmit club philosophies.
“We work so much together, and we’re all so aligned, that you can totally push coaches forward, because you know they’re not going to sink,” he adds. “We won’t let you. We’ll help you. We’re all together.”
Shared celebration
Homemade coaching talent was an instrumental ingredient in Ottawa TFC’s first-ever OPDL boys’ title (which was won about as dramatically as possible, with a tying goal in the last minute of added time, followed by a shootout stop to win the deciding penalty kicks session).
Cancura says the team displayed key club values in fighting back – work ethic and belief. He was thrilled to have OTFC win a championship on the boys’ side, and he’s equally excited that all of the boys’ OPDL teams should be contenders next season.
“I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Brogan (Engbers),” underlines Cancura, referencing another homegrown product. “He’s been leading the boys’ program and it’s just booming.”
Having the U15 boys and girls share the championship victories back-to-back on the road in Toronto was very special for players and staff alike. The girls were busy preparing for their match, but they couldn’t help but come to watch the boys’ furious finish. And then the boys stuck around and cheered from the rafters as the girls carried the momentum forward to capture their crown in the next match.
“When the girls saw the boys not only win, but come back from behind and win, I can’t imagine that it didn’t help them believe a little more,” indicates Cancura, who was an assistant coach for the girls’ team.
The best community
While Cancura is reticent to boast about being the best on the pitch, he’s much less hesitant to suggest Ottawa TFC has the greatest community around the club. He references the spine-tingling scene at Millennium Stadium on the night the U15 comeback kings beat their local rivals with a pair of last-moment goals.
Read More: Full house for U15 youth soccer game shows soccer culture has arrived in Ottawa
“I haven’t seen that anywhere in the whole province,” states Cancura, noting that the passionate packed park spoke volumes about club culture (figuratively and literally).
“Those people who rushed the field to celebrate the winning goal, it’s primarily U9, 10, 11 and 12-year-old boys who will be those guys soon, and they’ll be better because of this experience,” he reflects. “The younger ones are thinking, ‘I’m going to score that goal one day.’ And so how do they come to training the next time? A little better, a little sharper.
“Every coach that’s in the stands, every parent that’s in the stands, gets it. And so it starts to fuel itself.”
Elijah Roche, who was recruited by Toronto FC Academy and just scored in Canada’s first-ever win at the FIFA U17 Men’s World Cup, vividly remembers the bonds that developed while watching older clubmates’ matches in his early days at Ottawa TFC.
Superb strikers
As much as he tries to remain somewhat stoic on the sidelines, there were several times that Cancura felt the urge to join the fray and celebrate with OTFC’s U17 girls, who came together and progressed very well to place third in OPDL premier play this season.
That was due in large part to a pair of dazzling U16-age sharpshooters. Backed by a solid squad that allowed them to shine, Tahlia Aird-Greaves and Brooklyn Maheu were an unstoppable tandem.
They finished first and third respectively in U17 OPDL scoring with 25 and 19 goals in 20 games.
“There were some goals where you’d just instinctively jump up off the bench, like, ‘Wow! Where did that come from?'” Cancura recalls. “They’re just such a handful. You just kind of knew they would come up with something. They played so well off of each other.”
Maheu is very gritty and relentless, can shoot with both feet, serves as a captain for her team and is an exceptional coach for younger players too.
Aird-Greaves, who came within .03 seconds of breaking a 50-year-old high school girls’ 100 metres record on the track last year, is wicked fast, super crafty and unpredictable.
Her teammates will change lines to avoid facing off with her in speed drills, or simply accept inevitable defeat in a game of tag.
“We haven’t had too many like them, that’s for sure,” Cancura notes, adding that on top of talent, they’re also tops in character. “They really set the culture well. They just work hard every day with a smile. They welcome everybody in. They do all the right things and they’re growth-minded. They’re really cool people.”
The value of victory
As much as he emphasizes that triumphs and scoring titles aren’t the matrix from which he measures success, Cancura highlights that there can certainly be great gains stemming from championships – from a development perspective, and to fuel future growth.
He’s particularly excited to see the impact of winning OPDL prizes at the U15 level. Past Ottawa TFC titles came from U17 groups, which provided a wonderful culmination of many years’ work and propelled players on to university or professional careers. But now the champs will still be training at Ottawa TFC for another few seasons to inspire younger players on a daily basis.
“The belief, the confidence, the experience – all the feelings and the experiences you live, you bottle them and you carry them with you,” Cancura explains. “I think that’ll also be a blessing for our club for the next couple of years, and hopefully it’ll lead to more success and that it’ll keep on strengthening our environment.”
So while there’ll be no chest thumping, Cancura is ready to give a satisfied nod to the Shield, because of what it represents.
“Given the choice of winning and losing, you’ll pick winning every time,” Cancura concedes with a smile. “We are enjoying it. And the kids love it.”
Learn more about Ottawa TFC Soccer Club at OttawaTFC.com.
