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> Green and Gold Win Silver at CSA National Senior Men's Club Championships.
THE EUROSPORT SOCCER SCENE
by Lee Nohos, Sportscene/November/2005
The Golden Boot Award
This past month Edmonton and area soccer organizations helped to reinforce the fact that the Edmonton soccer scene is not only alive and well, but at the leading edge of the soccer delivery system in this country.
At the national senior championships the Edmonton Victoria Soccer Club won their second straight national title after defeating the Eliot River Piazza Joes Italia by a score of 3-nil. The Jubilee Shield is emblematic of supremacy in women’s soccer in this country and by winning a second straight title, it helps to confirm the level of soccer the local organizations and coaches are putting out in the Edmonton area.
Further confirmation comes on the Men’s side of the soccer world where the Edmonton Green and Gold made it all the way to overtime in the finale only to lose after a dominating performance.
The end result; take a bow Edmonton. We’re finally on the same level as Ontario and B.C. when it comes to producing top-end talent in this country.
In the Men’s final, the Green and Gold squad coached by Len Vickery of the University of Alberta and Green and Gold Academy fell behind early against Scarborough GS United (Ontario), but knotted the score at 2-2 before taking advantage of a red-card to take an 11-10 man advantage for much of the second half.
With more open space to produce a scoring threat, the Alberta entry dominated play but when the final whistle blew to end regulation time, the score was still knotted a two apiece.
The teams headed in overtime when the Ontario squad scored the deciding tally to take the national title. The Green and Gold squad had beaten the Portuguese Club of Vancouver (British Columbia) 4-0 and the St.Lawrence Laurentians (Newfoundand) 2-0 in pool play before progressing to the final with a 2-0 win over the Calgary Dinosaurs in semi-final action.
While it was a disappointing finish, there was no reason to hang their heads after being the second best team in the nation and head coach Len Vickery agreed that accolades need to be handed out to the squad who is made up primarily of current and former University of Alberta players.
“Certainly it was disappointing, but we had an excellent season and the players need to be congratulated for their efforts,” said Vickery, who is the soccer mind behind the University of Alberta soccer program and the lead man with the Green and Gold Soccer Academy that trains up coming soccer stars. “We had four or five good chances to end it but we were unable to convert. We hit the crossbar, missed a perfect cross and pushed one shot by the post. Those things tend to come back to haunt you and they managed to score a goal in overtime to give them the win.”
It’s easy to sit on the sidelines and say that the teams should be damn proud of being the second best senior club team in the country, but on the other side, it has to be a tough pill to swallow.
The uplifting news is that the majority of the team members are expected back next year and as Vickery admits, as long as this team stays together, they will always be in the hunt for a national title.
“We have a lot of young players,” says Vickery, who guides the team in the Alberta Major Soccer League. “The majority of the players are current members of the University of Alberta or the Alumni. We had a number of players come off the bench this year to make some significant contributions and I believe that next year we’ll have an excellent opportunity to return to the nationals.”
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