By Dan Plouffe
Inspiration was all around the Ottawa South United Force under-14 boys’ soccer team as they punched their ticket to the 2027 Canadian Player Development Program Championships at George Nelms Sports Park on Oct. 4 – from their club’s past success, the game’s greats, and one of their own who’d endured a serious injury abroad.
It was a high-stakes season finale for the Force on home turf, but parents could be excused for being on their phones during their kids’ game this time. That’s because OSU faced a scenario similar to the last games of the World Cup group stage – two matches in different cities impacting multiple teams’ fates, kicking off at the same time.
OSU was tied on points with London TFC in the race for Ontario’s second and final nationals berth, but London had the goal differential advantage heading into the decisive day by one. The task for OSU in facing Pickering was not only to win, but to do so by as many goals as possible.
OSU head coach Mohandi Mulay was getting out-of-town score updates from an assistant throughout his team’s match, but it ultimately was not even close – London only got a tie with Woodbridge, while the Force attacked relentlessly to win 7-0.
Zola Ndongo, Eamon Cobb and Malik Chabi sprung OSU to a 3-0 halftime lead, and then, as the situation demanded, the Force piled on with four more from Harris Maximillien Chenyuy Leuffo, Chabi (with his second) and a pair from Islam Ayoub Sillah.
“The boys performed very highly on a very important day,” Mulay underlined. “The quality that they had – and it’s not easy when you have a lot of pressure and you have to win with big results – was very impressive.”
The victory allowed OSU to carry on an exceptional club tradition of qualifying for four consecutive U15 boys’ PDP nationals. And so far, OSU has returned with a medal on each occasion – gold in 2024, bronze in 2025 and silver in 2026.
Force goalkeeper Hezekia Rajakoba is particularly in tune with those successes. His older brother Isaia was a member of the 2024 Canadian-champion squad, scoring a goal and an assist in the championship match and converting his attempt in the team’s penalty-kicks triumph.
“Now I think it’s our turn to win it as well,” said the younger Rajakoba, who led the OPDL U14 boys’ premier division with four clean sheets, after recording five more in east division play.
Mulay noted that the Force’s sights at the outset of the season were indeed set on qualifying for nationals, although they faced a tough road to get there. Stiff challenges came from the likes of London TFC, Woodbridge, Vaughan and the Atlético Ottawa Juniors, who went unbeaten to top the premier league and give Ottawa both of Ontario’s national qualification positions for the first time.
Read More: Camaraderie key to AOJ’s groundbreaking OPDL boys’ championship
“Especially for me, because I was the coach of the (national-medallist) 2010s and 2011s, I had a lot of pressure, personal pressure, to go with this group,” signalled Mulay, who didn’t sleep much the night before the decisive match.
“For many people, this is more than just a game,” added the OSU coach of four years from Spain/Western Sahara. “When you have the purpose and the passion, and you want to see your players developing and going to the next level… I don’t want to get too emotional, but I’m very, very happy to see that we achieved our objective.”
The Force were a group that had experienced lots and lots of winning in past seasons, and they continued that streak with an unbeaten campaign to convincingly win the OPDL east division this year with 10 wins and a draw.
OSU started premier play with three shutout victories, but then endured their first defeat to champion AOJ, followed by another two games later to Vaughan. Learning from the difficult losses, and how to manage up and downs, were key lessons the Force acquired, their coach outlined.
The team responded with convincing wins of 7-1, 6-2 and 7-0 to close the season, which earned a novel distinction for OSU as it became Canada’s first club to qualify teams to nationals four years in a row at the same age group.
“That is crazy,” Mulay highlighted. “To be able to maintain that standard to be able to go to nationals so many years in a row is so difficult. I’m very, very proud, and we are very, very happy to make history for OSU, and in Canada, and I’m especially happy for my boys, my players, to see them succeed.
“This generation is going to be good, and they are going to fight a lot for the gold too.”
‘For Dante’: Force rally around player who was seriously injured
The Force were fully zoned in on bringing their best in the week leading into the big game. On top of video analysis sessions, Mulay also played several motivational videos for his team.
There was one on the legendary Pelé, who always stepped up in the critical moments, and another on “Charlie Rocket,” who’d survived a brain tumour and then made a video for Nike about his turnaround, and eventually was chosen for a dream opportunity to appear in an ad campaign alongside Serena Williams and LeBron James.
The team later tacked up encouraging posters in their dressing room with messages that read: “for making it to nationals,” “for the legacy,” “making history for OSU,” “for us 2012B,” “for our family,” “for all the tough times we’ve been through,” and, most importantly, “for Dante.”
The team drew its biggest source of inspiration from one of their own, Dante Socarras, along with his family, Mulay recounted.
During a pre-season trip to Spain and Malta, the towering defender scored a goal on a header in one game, but he also collided head-to-head with another player in the process. Socarras had a bump above his eye from the impact, but when the team returned to its hotel later, it continued to swell larger and larger.
Socarras went to the hospital and doctors determined he was facing a dire situation, with emergency surgery required to stop bleeding in his brain following a cranial fracture.
Mohandi called it “one of the toughest moments of my career as a coach, perhaps the most serious injury I’ve witnessed in nearly 18 years on the sidelines,” in an emotional Instagram post.
Thankfully, Socarras’s prognosis improved after spending the following two weeks in hospital, although it took two months before he was able to safely fly home due to the air pressure of a plane ride.
“Imagine his parents having to be there. His mom was there all the time, his dad too, his sister,” reflected Mulay, noting Socarras’s teammates kept in touch with him while he was stuck in Malta. “Everybody was very, very scared.”
The Force players were thrilled when Socarras finally made it back to Canada, and even more ecstatic when he was able to rejoin them for training. A key leader, Socarras managed to return to game action before the end of the premier campaign. First, he played about five minutes, then 10, 15 and 25, followed by 60 in the big game.
“He’s doing great. It’s a miracle,” Mulay indicated. “To have that courage, the way that he came back, is unbelievable.”
Mulay said the adversity the young players encountered “made the team more together, more united.”
“We had that motivation to go to nationals for him. He definitely inspired us,” Mulay explained. “And now to be able to celebrate with Dante here playing with us – it’s just an amazing, amazing experience.”
OSU earns second nationals berth with U14 girls’ second-place performance
The OSU U14 girls clinched a second PDP nationals berth for their club during a relatively low-stakes season finale on the road.
Thanks to their league-best +21 goal differential, the Force only had to avoid a massive double-digits defeat to book their ticket, but they earned a point nonetheless in a 2-2 draw at Oakville, which had needed a win to reach the playoffs.
“It’s a very big day for the OSU family,” smiles Mulay.
The OSU girls were the premier division’s only unbeaten team with five wins and four draws, although 7-1-1 Unionville Milliken took the title with three more points.
The Force started their season with back-to-back three-goal losses, but then lost just once more in eight east division games to qualify for the premier division.
After scoring just three goals in their first three games of the campaign, the OSU offence exploded for 29 in the next seven.
Julia Metson had a similar emergence. After scoring just one goal in east division play, Metson then counted nine in premier to tie for the lead league alongside teammate Lianna Clyde, who totalled 16 in 19 east/premier games.
The Ottawa Sports Pages was unable to reach the team as of press time, but hopes to share their story in more detail in the coming weeks with the OPDL playoffs on tap.
Semi-finals will be played on the Oct. 17-18 weekend, followed by the Gary Miller Charity Shield finals the next weekend.
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.
There will be several more local teams competing in the playoffs. The national silver-medallist OSU U15 boys finished one point away from a championship. A road loss at ninth-place London in their penultimate game kept the title out of their hands, but three wins in their last four games sets the Force up well for the playoffs.
The AOJ U15 boys, meanwhile, will be looking to reverse course come the playoffs. After starting the premier schedule with five straight wins, including their first-ever victory over OSU, to sit in first place, they then lost four in a row to only scrape into the playoffs by one point.
Ottawa scored one additional OPDL league title thanks to the AOJ U17 girls, who 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.
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