By Dan Plouffe
Moments after winning his club’s first-ever Ontario Player Development League boys’ league title, Atlético Ottawa Juniors under-14 boys’ soccer team head coach Kousha Aminian immediately went to celebrate with his young family that had been anxiously awaiting the final whistle on the sidelines.
And just as soon as they could, the AOJ players hurried over to the stands at Millennium Park to high-five their family members too.
“I think the word family describes this team, this club, all of us,” Aminian underlines. “We’re a tight knit group, from the coaching staff to the players. When you spend so much time together, you build that camaraderie and that closeness, and they just deserve it.”
After going 6-2-2 in OPDL east division play, AOJ went unbeaten in the premier division to capture the groundbreaking crown with seven wins and two draws.
“From the get-go, we knew we had a pretty strong group, but what impressed me the most, and what allowed us to go undefeated in prem, it’s the camaraderie,” Aminian signals. “These guys stick together. It’s fantastic.”
AOJ completed the unblemished campaign on Oct. 4 at Millennium Park when they still required all three points against Vaughan to clinch the championship.
Joshua Twite and Sidney Ngo scored in the first 16 minutes, Youssef Sarem added another within 10 more, and AOJ cruised on to the 4-1 win and the league tile as Malik Cisse completed the home team’s scoring with a late penalty kick.
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
“Last year, we were not one of the best of teams,” reflects co-captain Cisse. “We kept getting better and better with all our hard work. Now we made it.”
Aminian knows it’s cliché, but he says it truly took a total team effort to reach new heights. Eleven different players scored AOJ’s 23 premier goals; Youssef Sarem had the most with four.
“We’re all strong. The whole team, man, all the hard work we put in, it pays off,” explains Ethan Ayoub, who also wears the team’s captain armband. “All those all the hours we spent training, getting better together, the sprints, the tiredness, the tournaments – we just we’ve gotten closer and closer every year.”
Aminian notes that the team’s sparkling defensive statistics offer evidence that “we have some of the most talented defenders in Ontario.”
AOJ and runner-up Ottawa South United tied for the league-best with just eight goals conceded. The only time AOJ allowed more than one came in a 6-2 win.
The record is a testament to the team’s grit too, adds Aminian, whose squad didn’t have many blowout wins, but they proved their mettle by coming out on top in close games.
He attributes the players’ confidence and commitment in large part to the maximum effort they put in every time the team is together.
“It’s about maintaining a standard and pushing it,” Aminian highlights. “We like to say our hardest opponent is ourselves Monday to Friday. We just want that compete day-in, day-out.”
AOJ also benefits from having a very strong local rival to push them, he notes, with Ottawa South United placing second just two points behind AOJ in the OPDL U14 boys’ standings.
Those combined finishes have resulted in a piece of local soccer history – for the first time, Ottawa teams have earned both of Ontario’s qualification positions for the Canadian Player Development Program Championships, which will take place next summer when the squads are U15 age.
“I always say that Ottawa is one of the most underrated soccer cities in Ontario. You see it year in year out with the number of teams we have that make it to the playoffs and are competing for a trophy,” Aminian indicates. “It’s nice to see two teams from Ottawa making it all the way.
“I know we’re gonna make the city proud next year when we go to nationals. It’ll be fantastic for this city, the soccer community, and it just pushes the next generation.”
It was cold and rainy on the day AOJ clinched the title, and Aminian’s players were kind enough to go easy on their coach with only two little cups of Gatorade showered on him for the traditional championship celebration, followed by a little larger water bottle spray later.
“I’ll take that anytime,” Aminian smiles. “It’s always great to win. It’s great to have a trophy. But for us, the best part is we know that we have at least two more weeks together.”
AOJ hosts a 1:30 p.m. playoff semi-final match on Oct. 18 at Julian de Guzman Park. A win would advance them to Charity Shield final the following weekend in Vaughan.
AOJ is celebrating two OPDL championship titles this season. The club’s U17 girls took care of business in a big way in their final game, firing six goals past North Mississauga in a shutout victory to claim the team’s first OPDL title in emphatic fashion.
Lilian Gauthier scored a hat trick, while Sophia Tsang, Brooklyn Siba-Maheu and Tahlia Aird-Greaves each had a goal as well.
Meanwhile, the AOJ U15 boys will be looking to reverse course come the playoffs. After starting the premier schedule with five straight wins, including their first-ever victory over national silver-medallist OSU, to sit in first place, they then lost four in a row to only scrape into the playoffs by one point.
OSU’s U15 boys finished one point away a from championship. A road loss at ninth-place London in their penultimate game kept the title out of their hands, but a record of three wins in their last four games sets OSU up well for the playoffs.
Ottawa will have a third nationals representative at the U15 level for next year’s nationals thanks to the OSU U14 girls’ runner-up performance.
And the West Ottawa Warriors U15 girls will also compete for a Trillium division crown on Saturday when they take on Aurora at the Ontario Soccer Centre in Vaughan.