When you're on a struggling sports team with only one win to your name, the last thing you want to hear is that the league is taking that one win away from you.
That was the situation faced by the Capilano University men's soccer team after they went 1-2 in their first week of PacWest league play this month. One of the team's players, defender Omar Adlani, earned a one-game suspension at the end of last season after receiving his third yellow card of the campaign. The suspension carried over to this year but that info got lost in the summer shuffle and Adlani ended up playing in the team's first three games this season, including their only win, 2-0 over Quest University Sept. 6.
When the league discovered the error, they called all three games forfeits, wiping out the win and leaving the Blues with zero points. For a team looking for positives, this was another downer.
"Losing those points I think took the wind out of everybody's sails a bit," said head coach Paul Dailly. "We weren't notified of our error before (the second and third games). It was an unfortunate circumstance, one that we obviously would like to change but we can't."
The PacWest league also made Adlani serve his suspension in game 4 and suspended Dailly for one match as well. The Blues lost both their week 2 games, leaving them anchored to the bottom of the standings with an 0-5 record. The forfeit was a tough blow, but Dailly admitted the team hasn't put in the on-field performances needed to score points regardless.
"We've played well in spells, but apart from the Quest game we haven't really put a good performance in for the full 90 minutes," he said. "Every mistake we make seems to end up in the back of our net right now. We're not really getting many favourable bounces, if you will. We're a fairly young team and we're getting a hard lesson to learn."
The Blues are inexperienced up front and have had trouble generating much of an attack, said Dailly.
"Defensively we're playing well but I think we're defending too much," he said. "By the time we get the ball we're tired and we don't keep possession as well as we should. Attacking-wise we need to tighten things up — we're not creating enough chances and not scoring enough goals to win games. It's putting a lot of pressure on the defence and goalkeeper to keep the ball out of our net.... Our forwards are pretty young. We expect a lot more than we're getting from them. We'll push and push and push and see what we can get from them."
Dailly is counting on leadership from captains Thomas Arnott, a fourth-year defender from West Vancouver secondary, and third-year midfielder Devan Woolley, a Sutherland grad. Woolley was a PacWest second team all-star last season, the only returning 2013 all-star on the team.
"He's a workhorse in the middle of the park," Dailly said of Woolley. "He's everything you want as a coach. He gives you 110 per cent every game, he wins every header, he's very strong in challenges. He can play, as well, when he gets the ball at his feet. He's one of those guys you'd want at every position around the park. He leads by example and his work rate alone is tremendous."
Other players expected to lead the squad are midfielders Vaughn Andrews from Coquitlam and Andre Pietramala from Port Moody, defender Matt Fuji, also of Port Moody, and forward Keith Jackson from Seycove.
Jackson is only in his second year but is already one of the team's most experienced strikers. He scored a header against Quest and has come close on several other occasions.
"He's played well," said Dailly. "He's had a few very good opportunities and unfortunately hasn't been able to cash in just yet."
With their slow start the Blues are in danger of missing the playoffs for the third straight year since they won PacWest silver in 2011. It's quite the swoon for a team used to massive success — the Blues have won 11 provincial gold medals and six national championships since the league began play in 1970.
"It's not enjoyable," Dailly said of Capilano's recent struggles. "Even this year's team, I'm looking at them and we're very happy with the 22 guys we have on the roster, but unfortunately we're just underperforming right now. Everyone on the team has more to give. I think we're fighting it a bit right now, lacking a bit of confidence."
Following last weekend's losses the Blues were seven points out of a playoff spot with 10 games left in the season. They'll look to get into the win column this weekend when they travel to Squamish Saturday for a rematch against Quest before hosting the Vancouver Island Mariners Sunday afternoon. The Mariners are currently first in the league with a 4-1-0 record that includes a 3-1 win over Capilano on opening weekend.
It's a long road back into the playoff hunt but Dailly said the team is nowhere close to giving up.
"There's no reason to panic just yet," he said. "What's done is done, we just have to obviously start getting some results, start climbing the table here inch but inch."
Dailly laid out the blueprint for what the team needs to do to get back into contention.
"We basically go day-by-day — it's the old cliché," he said. "We've got three practices this week, we'll obviously look to clear some stuff up that's giving us some difficulty. We'll work on those things in training and get prepared and ready to go for Saturday. We've got to take it game-by-game. We'll look to get a favourable result on Saturday and same again on Sunday."
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The Capilano women are tied for last place in the PacWest league with two points through five games. Both Blues squads will take on VIU at Capilano on Sunday with the women kicking off at noon and the men to follow at 2 p.m.
