The new era of Canadian soccer officially kicks off in Foothills County on Saturday.
Professional football dreams will soon be realized as the Canadian Premier League (CPL) makes its debut at Spruce Meadows’ ATCO Field on May 4 at 1:30 p.m. when Cavalry FC and York9 FC clash at the reconstructed Meadows on the Greens facility.
“Just to have this opportunity, to be in my backyard here, hometown boy, it’s just incredibly exciting,” said Cavalry FC goalkeeper Marco Carducci. “And I think that’s going to translate to the passion you’re going to see on the field from a lot of guys.
“It’s going to be an unbelievable venue to play at. Throughout the year as summer rolls through it’s going to be a special place to play.”
The team got a double dose of York9 during the CPL’s pre-season action in the Dominican Republic with the Cavalry riding off with a pair of 1-0 victories with a mixture of lineups on the pitch.
“I think it was a very successful (preseason) in terms of team coming together, us finding our chemistry and our identity on the field as individuals and as a unit,” said Cavalry FC midfielder Sergio Camargo. “Comparing ourselves to the other teams in the Dominican, obviously results don’t really matter in preseason, but just the way we played and showed ourselves, it’s very exciting.”
York9 and Forge FC played to a 1-1 draw on April 27 in Hamilton in what was the inaugural CPL match. The Cavalry played to a 1-0 win over Foothills FC in an exhibition game and open house at the brand new ATCO Field facility on the same afternoon.
“Seeing the Forge and York game before our game was really something else, the dream is now becoming a reality so we’re ready to take our steps on the field,” Camargo said. “I’ve been waiting way too long for this. I can’t wait any longer, this last week will be one of the longest weeks of my life waiting for this game.”
For everyone involved in growing the CPL, it will hopefully prove to be worth the wait and then some.
“It’s been a long off-season and a long preseason so I think at this point we’re just ready to get going,” Carducci said. “The training has been fantastic, it’s been a very high intensity, high level, we had a good trip to the Dominican where we got some games in and had some success, but at this point it’s just about fine-tuning little things and we’ll be ready to go next weekend.”
The team boasts familiarity most of the CPL will lack in the early going. Head coach and general manager Tommy Wheeldon Jr. brought 11 players with him from the 2018 Foothills FC squad, which won the PDL championship playing out of Okotoks, on to the Cavalry roster.
“For us, defensively we want to be solid, as a goalkeeper that’s obviously my priority,” Carducci said. “But we’re going to be exciting to watch, that’s our goal, we want fans to come and enjoy watching us play and be excited.
“I think we will be well-rounded, we’ll be able to be explosive on counter-attacks and be that exciting kind of team, but at the same time be the kind of team that can dominate possession and really just pass teams off the field.”
Camargo echoed the sentiment.
“We do play very direct, but it’s possession-based direct,” he said. “We want to get forward, but we want to get forward on the ground, connecting passes, not just kicking it up and holding it like a forecheck in hockey.”
The front-loaded schedule has the Cavalry playing five games in May, four of them at Spruce Meadows. It’s an opportunity for the squad to set the tone.
“Everyone is starting from scratch, early on it’s going to take a while to get used to one another,” Carducci said.
“It’s ground zero, it’s a blank slate and it was great to go to the Dominican and see what everyone has to show, just to take bits and pieces, but we’re all starting from the same place.
“For us, we just want to go out and dominate as early as possible. The way the league is structured is we have that 10-game spring season and it’s a great opportunity for us to try and put our stamp on the league early.”
Construction crews were putting the finishing touches on ATCO Field at the Meadows of the Greens at Spruce Meadows during the exhibition match on April 27. The stunning stadium with a capacity to seat 6,000 will be ready for the May 4 debut.
“It’s been a remarkable effort by our team,” said Ian Allison, president of Spruce Meadows Sports and Entertainment. “Not only putting together the on-field product, but the off-field product.”
The weather didn’t do the crew at Spruce Meadows any favours, with progress on construction delayed until southern Alberta got out of its deep freeze to start 2019. Allison said the frost was nine feet deep at one point.
“We’ve been really fortunate in that we do have a bit of experience with turf. The Meadows on the Green was a great venue for us to put together what is an now actual field to play on,” he said. “We had to do some drainage, we had to get inspired as we were last year in our first Al Classico and determined we need a bigger grandstand and facility so that’s been a bit of a compressed timeline.
“But we have a really experienced team here that has the right heart and mind to get it done and we’re going to get it done.”
For more information go to cavalryfootball.club
