June 25, 2024...Basic Instinct: Brian Wright Sets New All-Time CPL Record After Astonishing Start to the 2024 Season (from York United FC website)

June 25, 2024...Basic Instinct: Brian Wright Sets New All-Time CPL Record After Astonishing Start to the 2024 Season
(from York United FC website)

BASIC INSTINCT: BRIAN WRIGHT SETS NEW ALL-TIME CPL RECORD AFTER ASTONISHING START TO THE 2024 SEASON

The striker has scored seven goals and added four assists in first 11 games.

LIFE OF BRIAN

Crunch the numbers and it's pretty extraordinary.

Let's take the big ones to start.

A league-leading seven goals: already equalling his best season-long tally in the Canadian Premier League.

Four assists.

Three Team of the Week selections. Player of the Week. Man of the Match on three occasions.

And all of that in just nine league appearances.

Oh, and it gets better.

Nobody in CPL history has ever put up these goal and assist numbers in the first 11 fixtures of the season.

Brian Wright is in the form of his life.

"I’m finding good areas," he said after a recent brace in the 2-1 away win over Atletico Ottawa: the second time this season's that he's scored twice in a game.

“The ball’s finding me this year a little bit more, and I’m being a little bit more clinical. Last year I had some chances, but didn’t score enough goals. This year, I’m finding myself in the right areas, and I’m burying them right now.”

Brian Wright, who has now made CPL history with 11 goal contributions in the first 11 games of the season.

BASIC INSTINCT

Rewinding to the start of the season, Wright was without a goal for the opening two games. Then, at home to Vancouver FC in late-April, he found some rhythm and scored twice. But, it's worth pointing out the type of goals he managed that night: aesthetically, hardly the most beautiful. But for strikers, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Those scrambled, messy efforts - the shots that take two deflections before rolling into the net, the three-yard tap-ins...those are the special ones. They're about instinct, sniffing out an opportunity, perhaps even a defensive error. From there, they'll take full advantage.

Wright's brace that night was exactly that: the first a close-range finish after Juan Cordova's low cross. And it gave him the momentum and confidence to make something of the chance that came his way in injury time, outfoxing Rocco Romeo and then jinking around Callum Irving before slotting home. His next goal - again at home and this time against Valour FC - was that perfect example of capitalizing on a defensive lapse. Away to Cavalry, it was the exact same. And with these goals, Wright began to soar. Confidence began to simmer. And his finishing started to become instinctive.

In Ottawa, everything flowed for him. The deft touch over Nate Ingham to open the scoring, and then the first-time strike inside the near post to double the lead. And last week - at home to Pacific FC - there was another first-time finish, after some terrific work from Josué Martínez.

The curse of the striker is to overthink, to dwell on a chance, to take an extra touch.

Now, Wright is not thinking.

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