Coming from Portugal, you’ve got to figure Pacific FC forward David Brazão knows a thing or two about soccer. He continued proving it by scoring for the second consecutive game off the bench in the Tridents’ 4-1 Canadian Premier League victory Sunday over York United at Starlight Stadium.
“I’m happy I can help the team. That’s why I’m here,” said Brazão, who also scored last week as a second-half sub in the 2-0 Canadian Championship quarter-final win over the Burnaby TSS Rovers of League1 B.C.
“The CPL has a lot of quality and is more physical,” said Brazão.
The 21-year-old forward, signed in March, was most recently with SU Sintrense in the Portuguese pro third division with six goals and three assists in 17 appearances last year after coming up through the Benfica U-17 and U-19 teams. The connection comes through PFC assistant coach Armando Sá, who was capped six times for Mozambique, and played pro for 16 seasons with Benfica, Villareal, Espanyol, Rio Ave, Braga and Leeds United.
PFC head coach James Merriman has been impressed by his young Portuguese super-sub Brazão the last two games: “Those were well-taken goals … very good goals.”
Pinching defender Amer Didic, on a pin-point corner kick from Adonijah Reid, Manny Aparicio, on a precision assist from Sean Young, and striker Easton Ongaro with his first of the season accounted for the other PFC goals Sunday.
Kévin dos Santos of York United made it 2-1 at 55 minutes directly off a corner kick in another in a series of balls this season that have slipped through the gloves of PFC goalkeeper Emil Gazdov to gift goals. The Tridents’ keeper redeemed himself moments later with a point-blank save off Brian Wright that could have tied the game and then made another big save.
“[Gazdov] needs to improve. It’s his age [19] and these are learning experiences,” said Merriman.
“He made an amazing save to make up for his mistake. He needs to develop a thick skin.”
The Tridents have outscored the opposition 10-2 over the last three games and are 3-1-1 in the CPL and 5-1-1 across all competition with two wins in the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup, with a semifinal date looming May 24 at Starlight Stadium against the Vancouver Whitecaps of Major League Soccer.
“We’re challenging ourselves to take more chances and are being very versatile and growing with every match,” said Merriman.
“We still have more to come.”
It was not a great homecoming Sunday for York United head coach Martin Nash, the St. Michaels University School-grad who was a pro with the Whitecaps and earned 38 caps for Canada, including as a CONCACAF Gold Cup champion.
York United fell to 1-4 in league and 1-5 across all competitions, including a 4-1 loss to the Whitecaps last week in the quarter-finals of the Canadian Championship.
“It’s back to the drawing board,” said Nash, following the loss to PFC on Sunday.
“There was a lot of yelling [at the half-time break]. I had a bit of a go at them,” added the normally even-keeled Nash.
“I don’t usually lose my cool.”
It worked to an extent.
“We started the second half well and had two glorious chances [to tie the game 2-2]. If we did that for 90 minutes, we would have more results,” said Nash.
PFC is in Winnipeg on Saturday to play Valour FC (1-1-3 in league in wins-losses-draws).
