August 25, 2019 CPL--'We've come a long way': Highs and lows of York9's campaign (from canpl.ca website)

  
‘We’ve come a long way’: Highs and lows of York9’s campaign 
August 25, 2019 
Canadian Premier League 

YORK REGION – Where other teams stroll up to a match wearing branded track suits and runners, 
York9 FC come in style.

The entire team was outfitted with tailored three-piece suits, bright green ties, and pocket 
squares at the beginning of the Canadian Premier League season.

“It was to let the players know this is your work, this is your job,” coach Jimmy Brennan 
explained. “If you’re in an office, you dress sharp and we’re no different. The game 
is the stage where you perform and to show up to that stage you look the part. We all 
come in with suits – and look good.”

That theme surfaced time and again.

“It shows that we are professional,” defender Luca Gasparotto offered. “One of the words 
we describe ourselves with is ‘unity.’ We all come in looking the same.”

Professionalism is one of the characteristics that Brennan is looking to instill 
in the fledgling club.

“Our job is to teach them what it means to be a professional footballer,” the former 
Canadian international stated. “I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve gained that 
experience through other people, got to play at the professional level, so my job 
as a coach is to pass that knowledge on and explain to them this is what it takes, 
this is how you handle yourself on and off the field.”

Comprised of players from a variety of backgrounds, representing a vast region 
of nine communities, the team itself embodies that very notion.

“We are all from a lot of places, but at the end of the day we’re all Canadian,” 
Y9 captain Manny Aparicio said.

“We grew up playing for these clubs: for Vaughan, for Woodbridge, for Unionville. 
To be able to represent this area is what really drives this team.”

Unity as a strength was another of the threads.

The schedule gods, however, conspired to keep York9 away from that power source, 
as the team opened the season with three straight road games, including the inaugural 
match at Tim Hortons Field against Forge FC, where they earned a 1-1 draw 
with Ryan Telfer scoring the goal in CPL history. A loss away to Cavalry FC 
and a draw away to Pacific FC followed.

Add in the away leg of their Canadian Championship series against AS Blainville 
and York were winless through their first four outings.

“Straight off the bat you’ve got to get used to the travelling,” Aparicio began. 
“Training here at home, then travelling to Calgary, Hamilton, wherever. A lot 
of us have been around, but a lot of our team is new to the professional environment, 
so that’s something they had to learn, how to take care of themselves off the field.

“That was a tough spell, a few draws, a few losses, but that translated into what 
we are now. … We knew what it felt like to struggle.”

It was in that Canadian Championship opening series against Blainville where 
a switch flipped.

“People underestimated what they were going to come and do,” Aparicio recalled. 
“They were a very good side, showed we have to beat them, show why we’re 
the professional team. We went and did that.”

York took a 0-0 from the away leg and Telfer, displaying his knack for the big 
occasion, found the needed breakthrough late in the return match – just the team’s 
fifth goal in as many games.

“We couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net – that’s where we struggled,” 
Aparicio explained. “That’s when our chemistry came in, against Blainville. 
We started seeing we’re a good footballing side, when we bought into Jimmy’s 
mythology, started keeping the ball around any team.”

Provincial rivals Forge and the weather would spoil their home opener a few days 
later with York falling 2-0, but another hard-earned road point with a 1-1 draw 
at HFX Wanderers FC to close the month was followed by an offensive explosion 
– three goals from set-pieces in the first leg of their cup series against 
FC Edmonton – heralded a turn.

Though they lost the second leg 1-0 in Edmonton, York advanced 3-2 on aggregate 
and picked up a 1-0 win, their first in league play, against Pacific FC – courtesy 
of a Ryan McCurdy own-goal – back home to kickoff June.

More scoreless draws followed at home against Edmonton and HFX, as well as a 2-0 
home loss to eventual Spring Competition winners Calvary. But the saw the Nine Stripes 
come into their own with a 3-1 away win over Valour FC.

It wasn’t just the goals, but the way they came, the way the side accomplished 
what they set out to do.

“Finished out that season strong, that was our plan: to go into that game, 
end on a good note and start the Fall season fresh,” said Aparicio, who bagged 
the second. “We score those three goals – great from Maury (Doner), free-kick goal, 
a little bit of a deflection, and a 90th minute goal (from Simon Adjei), probably 
the sweetest you can get as a team.

“We haven’t looked back. We know what we’re capable of, we’ll go up to anyone.”

It was a case of efforts being rewarded, and through it all, Brennan’s philosophy 
was coming into light.

“It took us a while to understand who we were as a team, the way that we wanted 
to play,” Brennan said. “At the beginning of the season, we could never really get 
settled and we found it difficult, grinding out draws, doing whatever we could 
to get a result.

“We’ve settled down now, we’ve got our home, got our training pitch, we’ve got wins 
under our belt and every game we’re growing in confidence. We’ve improving every 
single week.”

A 1-0 loss away to HFX officially kicked off the Fall competition, but a run 
of two straight 2-1 home wins over Edmonton and Pacific, as well as another defeat 
at the hands of Cavalry, this time 1-0 away, saw York shoot up the table.

And going toe-to-toe with the Montreal Impact in the third round of cup action, 
self-proclaimed as the biggest match in the club’s young history, only buoyed 
them further.

Having fallen behind on an errant back-pass, Y9 stormed ahead with two goals 
in the waning moments of the first leg, only for a stoppage-time penalty to spare 
the visiting Impact’s blushes.

In the second leg, they had plenty of chances to score a valuable away goal 
in the opening moments, but another penalty sealed their fate, and York bowed 
out of the Voyageurs Cup at the feet of the Impact, losing 3-2 on aggregate.

“This fall season has been a lot kinder to us,” Brennan said. “With the cup games 
against Montreal, the players really understood we can compete – against MLS 
teams and teams in this league.

“It really helped with our confidence.”

That was evident in their next CPL match, closing July with a 6-2 dismantling 
of HFX to thrust themselves into the contender’s group atop the standings.

Another facet of that professional mindset has been somewhat unique at York.

Where other teams look to rotation to manage the ferocity of the schedule, 
Brennan takes a different approach: once you earn the shirt, you keep it.

“If you’re doing a job, you stay in. Push yourself, you’ve really got to test 
yourself,” Brennan said. “It’s not amateur football where you can come 
in one week, play a game and not show up the next week. This is your job now. 
You get your position, you hold it down for as long as can because there 
is going to be someone knocking on your door that wants your job.

“I want our guys to play 30-40 games in a season. To be a hardened professional, 
you have to play that number of games, week in, week out, every single year.”

A trio of losses followed a two-week break, including a pair of 2-0 home 
defeats against Valour and Pacific, and, most recently, yet another to Cavalry, 
this time 3-1 at Spruce Meadows, but emerging undaunted from such setbacks 
is part of what it means to be a professional.

“We’ve come a long way,” reflected Gasparotto of the club’s journey. “We’re 
a very tight-knit group, play for each other, work hard for each other. We created 
that bond and our football speaks for itself: the way we play, the trust 
we have in each other on the ball, the movement off the ball to help our teammates.

“We’ve built a good football playing squad. And it’s going to keep getting better.”

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