July 14, 2022...Preview: York United vs. Pacific FC - 2022 Match #57 (ComeOn! Match of the Week) (from canpl.ca website)

PREVIEW: York United vs. Pacific FC — 2022 Match #57 (ComeOn! Match of the Week)
2022-07-14
by CHARLIE O’CONNOR-CLARKE, DIGITAL CONTENT EDITOR (@CHARLIEJCLARKE)
2022 CPL Regular Season — Match #57

York United vs. Pacific FC
July 15, 2022 at 7:30 p.m ET
York Lions Stadium in Toronto, Ontario
Watch Live: OneSoccer.ca & TELUS Ch. 980 // 

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Pacific FC travel to York Lions Stadium for the second time this season, as they take 
on a familiar foe in York United under the lights on Friday in a tantalizing ComeOn! 
Match of the Week.

The Tridents arrive in Ontario with a little more confidence than they’ve had in some 
recent weeks, having finally snapped a seven-game winless streak last Saturday by beating 
FC Edmonton 3-2 at Clarke Stadium. Coach James Merriman will be thrilled to have seen 
his side score three goals in each of their last two games, though he’ll want to see 
them clean things up defensively.

As it stands, Pacific remain very well positioned in the table. Through 15 games, they’re 
in third place with a 6-5-4 record, putting them just two points back of joint-leaders 
Cavalry and Atlético Ottawa. Away from home, they have yet to hit their best; Pacific 
have won two of their seven matches outside of Vancouver Island, scoring just five goals 
along the way.

“The group is in a good spirit and we’re motivated,” Merriman told reporters on Thursday. 
“We know it hasn’t been good enough for a while and we’re trying to get out of this, 
build some consistency in our performances. Everybody wants to play, so I think that’s 
the most difficult part right now.”

York, on the other hand, are desperate for a turning point. They’re 2-5-7 at the midway 
mark of the season, and their 11 points have them just one ahead of last-place FC Edmonton. 
York’s last win was on May 6, and since then they’ve lost six out of nine games 
and conceded 11 goals while scoring just one.

Martin Nash and co. have become increasingly frustrated with performances the past couple 
matches, particularly their most recent loss — a 2-0 defeat at home to Forge FC. 
With a nine-point gap to the top four — and a six-point gap to HFX Wanderers, the closest 
team ahead of them — they need results to start turning in their favour very soon if they 
have designs on playing meaningful games come the end of the year.

“We can show [players] after the game, look at all these chances we created, all these 
chances we had, and it seems every game we have a number of chances in great areas where 
we either don’t hit the target or don’t take advantage and in the end, it comes down 
to a little bit of quality in our final third,” Nash said this week. “We’re either rushing 
things or making the wrong decisions. I think the guys have got a good attitude; it’s the 
halfway point of the season now, we have to try and get off on the right foot in the 
second half of the season here and get rolling.”

These two sides have seen quite a lot of each other already this year. They played out 
a sluggish 0-0 draw at York Lions Stadium just under a month ago, but they also met twice 
on Van Isle in May: another 0-0 draw in a league clash, and a 2-2 Canadian Championship 
tie that York won on penalty kicks.

Historically, York have had the upper hand in this fixture. They’ll certainly hope that 
can be the case this week, as they look for a galvanizing moment that can turn their 
season around.

Make your match picks prior to kickoff at canpl.ca/predictor for a chance to win prizes, 
including the grand prize of a trip to the 2022 CPL Final!

All CPL matches are available to stream on OneSoccer, or on TELUS Optik TV Channel 980.

3 THINGS TO WATCH

York shorthanded by suspensions: The going does not get any easier for the Nine Stripes, 
who have struggled with injuries all year and now enter this match without two perennial 
starters — Jordan Wilson and Mateo Hernández — who are suspended after both picked up 
their fourth yellow card of the year last Friday against Forge. That was Wilson’s first 
game back in his natural midfield position after such a long stretch at centre-back, 
which makes it particularly frustrating for Nash whose depth has thus taken another hit. 
Hernández, too, has been slowly getting acclimated to the CPL level and looking stronger 
and stronger with his contributions to the attack. York might continue to lean on their 
summer reinforcements, especially up front; Ronan Kratt made his debut last weekend 
and Luis Lawrie-Lattanzio has yet to feature, but both could be involved up front 
on Friday, especially after Max Ferrari had to step in and play left-back last week 
against Forge. “It’s at least been a couple days to work on things, so it wasn’t like 
finding out today,” Nash said of the suspensions. “It’s not great obviously, [Wilson 
and Hernández] have been two big contributors to the team, but we shuffle things around 
and still feel we can field a really good lineup that has the ability to beat any team 
in this league.”

Pacific finding depth, competition for spots up front: In the first few weeks of this season, 
Pacific were very consistent in the attacking lineup they rolled out: namely, a front three 
of Josh Heard on the left, Alejandro Diaz in the middle, and Marco Bustos on the right. 
Head coach Merriman has opted for a different look the past two games, though, attacking 
with more of a front four including Gianni Dos Santos and Djenairo Daniels while Bustos 
has been used as a substitute. It was a bold call, but in each of the two games they’ve 
used that four-man setup, Pacific have scored three goals (Daniels has two for himself, 
and Dos Santos has one plus an assist). Whether or not they stick with that tactic, 
or whether star man Bustos has won his place in the XI back through a good week in training, 
it’s undoubtedly good news for Pacific that there’s now more competition for spots 
in the lineup. Asked about the shifted formation, Merriman said: “We’ve brought on another 
attacking player, rather than a central midfielder, and it’s changed the way we want to attack, 
the way we want to play. We’ve gone forward a little bit quicker and we look dangerous. 
They’re all hungry for minutes… We have a lot of very good, creative, different attacking 
players, so we looked at that run of games where we were having a difficult time creating 
chances and decided to add one more to our attack.”

More goals available in this meeting? These two teams have played out a pair of 0-0 draws 
already this season, with neither side being quite able to solve the other’s defence 
so far — save for in that Canadian Championship tie, where both solved the other twice. 
Recently, though, these two well-drilled defensive units have been considerably less so; 
both teams have given up at least two goals in each of their last three contests, 
as opposing teams have seemed to find their way into dangerous areas a little more easily. 
On Friday, both managers will likely put particular focus on their defensive solidity, 
which may once again make goals hard to come by, but recent evidence does suggest that 
both these teams can be broken down by the right tactics and individual players. Perhaps 
that’ll be enough to separate them this time around. “It’s been difficult matches every 
time that we’ve met York,” Merriman said Thursday. “Losing in the Canadian Championship, 
that’s a competition that we really look forward to, so our group’s motivated and I expect 
a big performance; I think the guys want to play this team, play this game again.”

ALL-TIME SERIES
York United wins: 5 || Pacific wins: 2 || Draws: 5

Previous match:
June 18, 2022 — York United 0-0 Pacific FC

KEY QUOTES
“We’ve worked on our attacking play and some patterns, and we’re also trying to integrate 
a few new players into the squad, so we’re having to do some stuff we maybe don’t need 
to do so much, but just getting everyone on the same page so they’re all available to play.” 
— York United head coach Martin Nash

“We’re coming here to play. We’re building off of what we’ve done the last couple matches, 
and our group’s in a good way and know we still need to keep performing and find that 
consistency in our form and in our performances. So that’s what we’re looking for right now, 
and we’re going to attack.” — Pacific FC head coach James Merriman

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