October 29, 2013 CSL--preview of Final game (from CSL website)
WATERLOO REGION FANS HOPE THEIR
WINNING COACH WILL DO IT AGAIN
CSL Championship Final Sunday
TORONTO – Tuesday, October 29 - Drazen Vukovic was one of several players to venture
here from Europe early 2010 for the express purpose of playing in the Canadian
Soccer League. He, and they, played professional soccer at various levels the other
side of the Atlantic, mostly in Eastern Europe.
Vukovic, 32, a striker, was accompanied by Ranko Golijanin, also a forward but with
an even stronger background which included a stint in Spain. A former under-21
international, now 38, Golijanin first came to North America to play for the
Milwaukee Rampage USL A-League championship side in 2002.
There is more to SC Waterloo, of course, but there’s little doubt that this considerable
experience in the player and technical ranks of the southwestern Ontario side which
represents Waterloo region in the CSL, has played a big part in the club’s success and
the fledgling club of just three years now has an opportunity to win the league
championship and the Second Division title, a double not previously achieved since
the league launched its Second Division back in 2007. Both games, the CSL Championship
Final (Kingston FC vs SC Waterloo), preceded by the CSL Second Division Championship
Final (Toronto Croatia B vs SC Waterloo B), are being played at Niagara Falls this
coming Sunday.
Waterloo head coach Lazo Dzepina has a pro UEFA coaching licence, necessary if you are
hired to coach teams like NK Dinara in Croatia. But Dzepina is not new to North America
either, having played for Hamilton Thunder, a team in the CSL’s forerunner league CPSL.
The club’s strong managerial side, which includes GM Vojislav Brisevac and Tony Kocis,
are yet more reason for the team from Waterloo to be strong contenders to capture both
major honours on November 3.
The Second Division string Waterloo ‘B’, the club’s reserve team which serves
as a developmental unit, is up against the Toronto Croatia reserve team which won the
CSL Second Division standings in the regular season just ended. The Toronto team’s
head coach, George Jenkins - who holds a FIFA 'A' license - and GM Igor Beram, are
attempting to add a Second Division championship triumph to the long list of domestic
and overseas achievements going back to Toronto Croatia’s formation in 1956.
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Kingston FC has good reason to be optimistic with three of its players up front having
amassed a total 47 goals during regular season. Guillaume Surot, a French-born striker,
headed the list with 28, while Catalin Lichioiu, who came to North America from Romania,
struck 10. Jason Massie, with soccer skills that originate in Liverpool, England, found
the net nine times.
But head coach Colm Muldoon from Ireland, also believes soccer is a two-way game and has
emphasized the need while his team was scoring to keep the goals against column down.
Czech Republic native Jaroslav Tesar is given most credit for that, earning 16 wins,
the most of any goalkeeper in the CSL, and the team’s 30 goals conceded was third best
in the league.
The eastern Ontario team’s remarkable performance to win the CSL’s First Division in just
its second year in professional soccer was in part due to the rapid construction from the
ground floor of a club determined to add pride to the Kingston community, a city which has
embraced higher level soccer from first acquaintance in 2012. Lorne Abugov, one of Canada’s
prominent lawyers in the communications sector, the club chairman, and Joe Scanlon, a journalist
and Professor Emeritus at Carlton University in Ottawa who is president of Kingston FC, are
responsible for the bright image being enjoyed by the club today.
But the soccer community recalls the unpretentious Lazo Dzepina appearing on the scene
in 2010 when, like magic, he won the CSL Championship with expansion Brantford Galaxy and
in the region to the north of Brantford, the fans are hoping Dzepina can provide an encore
and do the same for Waterloo.
The CSL Championship Final between Kingston FC and SC Waterloo is played at Kalar Sports Park,
Niagara Falls, Ontario this coming Sunday, November 3 at 2.30 pm and is preceded by the
CSL Second Division Final between Toronto Croatia B and SC Waterloo B at 12 noon.
Canadian Soccer League
Ligue canadienne de soccer
www.canadiansoccerleague.ca
5160 Explorer Drive, Unit 1, Mississauga, Ontario
Tel: 905 564-2297 Fax: 905 671-6450
Toll Free 1 888 216-9913
Email: csl@canadiansoccerleague.ca