By Keiran Gorsky
Seema Sakran was hoping all records of her first appearance for the West Ottawa Warriors had been lost to time.
“She will hate me for mentioning this,” laughed her coach, Lucas Blain.
“Did you have an interview with [Blain] beforehand?” Sakran asked the Ottawa Sports Pages. “Well, great,” she feigned upon hearing the affirmative answer, though it didn’t sound like she thought it was very great.
Sakran had joined the Warriors for their fourth game of their debut Quebec LS Pro league season when her academic year at Queen’s University had come to an end. West Ottawa won that game 4-1 over Saint-Constant’s CS Roussillon, but Sakran felt like it ought to have been a lot more.
Blain estimates she had something like 10 chances to put one past the Roussillon goalkeeper. Snakebitten Sakran didn’t know what was wrong with her.
“I do get a bit hard on myself when I have a high standard and I can’t perform,” Sakran explained. “So that definitely took a hit on me mentally.”
Boasting a perfect record up to that point, Blain could afford her some time to find her scoring touch. Her ceiling was sky high – the towering forward had tallied nine goals for the Gaels that season in U Sports and 35 goals in 61 games over her university career. The goals would come, he assured her, even if she wasn’t so certain.
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Blain didn’t exactly have to be patient, it turned out. Sakran found the back of the net within 20 minutes the following game and then 19 more times over the next 10 matches. She and teammate Gracie Sommers scored roughly half the team’s 67 goals as the Warriors secured promotion to Quebec’s LS Pro Ligue 2 on a 14-1-1 record, with only five goals allowed over the course of the season.
The Warriors men later joined the women in Ligue 2 after they topped their division and then prevailed 2-1 over the Granby Cosmos in a hard-fought 2-1 promotion final. Both teams entered the Quebec soccer pyramid at the bottom rung in the spring when they debuted in the semi-pro league.
Sakran’s steady scoring record was enough to earn her a professional contract with Portuguese side Real Sport Clube, which she joined at the end of August. Situated in Queluz, some 25 minutes outside of Lisbon, the team plays in the Campeonato Nacional II Divisão – the second tier of women’s soccer in the country.
Though she certainly wouldn’t scoff at an offer from a top-division side, Sakran’s dream is to return to Ottawa to play for Rapid FC in the Northern Super League.
“I mean, if Arsenal wants to sign me, I will definitely go there. But that’s me shooting for the stars,” laughed Sakran, who played for Ottawa South United for two years before joining West Ottawa. “I want to get that experience professionally out here first and see how the soccer differs and bring what I learned back to my hometown.”
The lopsided results the Warriors achieved are all the more impressive given the uphill battle they faced in recruiting talents like Sakran. Local rivals OSU and AS Gatineau were playing higher up the soccer pyramid on both the men’s and women’s sides. Convincing Ottawa players, many of them with professional ambitions, to play in a lower division at a key juncture in their career proved a difficult task.
Like many players who committed their summer seasons to West Ottawa, Sakran followed a few close friends onto the team, which transformed many adversaries to comrades among University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and Carleton Ravens.
The miniature factions were even more pronounced on the men’s side, where coach Stephen O’Kane was able to convince a core group from the club’s 2023 Challenge Trophy national amateur champion team to reunite.
“I had a violin and guitar in their backyard and sung them love songs,” O’Kane joked of the difficulty in winning over top talent in the region. “Starting from scratch was difficult.”
On the women’s side, Sakran had heard universally good things about coach Blain, who recognized the immense ambition on his Warriors roster. Starting 11s were seldom the same from week to week, with so many players departing for trials at home and abroad. Blain cultivated an individualized training approach for each player. He was happy to frame West Ottawa as a stepping stone to higher levels so long as players like Sakran would pass through their ranks.
“We have an individual approach for every single player while making sure that they understand the commitment that they’re making to us,“ he underlined. “A lot of clubs won’t entertain those conversations because, in all fairness to them, you risk ending a season with no players left.”
Sakran indicated she owed much of her success to Blain and the coaching staff, with whom she had long conversations about her development off the field. Before and after practices, and sometimes even on off-days, Blain would meet up with her for short training sessions.
“He’s not just one of those coaches that shows up, does what he needs to do and then leaves,” she said of Blain. “He definitely goes above and beyond to improve like each player.”
Amidst the constant arrivals and departures, she noted, they were still an exceptionally tight-knit bunch. Even on their lengthiest trips into Quebec, people didn’t go to sleep. On one trip back, Sakran’s whole van sang karaoke all the way home.
The girls didn’t all know each other, but as coach Blain put it, they looked as if they had been playing together for years.
Sakran is a little more dependent on her teammates in Portugal, who have to double as translators while she works her way up the language tree on Duolingo. She opened her season on Saturday with a 3-1 win over the reserve team of Sporting CP – one of the biggest clubs in Portugal.
Sakran is ecstatic to kick off her professional career in such a soccer-crazed country. But she hasn’t ruled out suiting up for West Ottawa next summer.
“We will dominate League 2,” she said boldly. “League 3 was, I don’t want to say it was a breeze, but we can definitely take more competition, for sure.”
Youthful Warrior Meeyah Milord joins CF Montréal
Sakran was awarded the league’s Golden Boot as its top scorer, while teammate Meeyah Milord earned a different type of distinction as the Warriors’ youngest goal scorer.
But the call-up from the West Ottawa under-15 Ontario Player Development League squad also wound up with a similar type of feat as Sakran, having now joined a pro club, with CF Montréal’s women’s academy.
West Ottawa saluted Milord, who was also part of a sport-études program at Paul-Desmarais high school, as “a great example of what can happen when talent is matched with hard work, consistency and a commitment to development,” in an Instagram post.
“This is a special moment for Meeyah and one that she has earned,” highlighted West Ottawa Soccer Club executive director Jessie Burgins. “She has continued to challenge herself, put in the work and take advantage of every opportunity in front of her.
“Seeing a WOSC player take this next step with CF Montréal is something our entire club can be proud of. We’re excited for Meeyah, but we’re even more excited about what is still ahead of her.”