Calgary United out to defend CMISL title

Despite the departure of several of his stars, Calgary United coach Troye Flannery has confidence his team can repeat as Canadian Major Indoor Soccer League champions. “

We’ve got some hard work ahead, but certainly that’s the intent, without a doubt,” said Flannery, whose squad began defence of its CMISL title with a narrow 7-6 win over the Edmonton Drillers on New Year’s Eve at the Subway Soccer Centre.

The off-season took its toll on the United as Chris Kooy, Kyle Yamada and Andre Duberry all signed professional contracts with FC Edmonton of the North American Soccer League, while veteran forward Mark Slade decided to retire.

“Those are difficult players and character leaders to replace,” said Flannery, who is nonetheless optimistic the United can repeat as league champs to earn a berth at the North American indoor championships against teams from the United States and Mexico.“We’ll still be very strong even without those guys. We retained a pretty dynamic core and we added a couple guys that I’m pretty excited to get into the lineup.”

The second-year United bench boss has high hopes for Coleman McFarlane, a forward/midfielder who just wrapped a five-year career with the University of Victoria.

“When he’s switched on, he can be one of the best players in the league,” Flannery said. “He was a star at UVic for a lot of years. He’s a pretty special player.”

While Flannery also touted the likes of Joe Long, Daylan Cato-Meyer, Sean Colvin, Dean Northover and the Paszkowski brothers (Arthur and Konrad), it was returning snipers Felix Napuri Jr. and Calvin Campbell who did all the damage against Edmonton in Calgary’s home opener. Napuri Jr. and Campbell both had hat tricks as Calgary built up a 6-1 lead by halftime over their northern Alberta rivals.

“Walking off at halftime against Edmonton, a couple people had suggested that it was over,” recalled Flannery. “I knew very well that it most likely wasn’t. Unfortunately we got into some penalty trouble. We didn’t play with as much flow and our transition game sort of went by the wayside.”

Campbell admitted that the United players didn’t come out in the second half with the same intensity they displayed in the first two quarters.

“We just took our foot off the pedal,” noted Campbell. “They got two goals early in the third quarter that kind of put us on our heels. Really we didn’t take advantage of our chances and capitalize on what we had in the second half.”

After Napuri Jr. notched his fourth goal of the game, the Drillers pushed hard and scored three more times, but couldn’t notch the equalizer.

“It’s a healthy rivalry,” said Flannery, who gave credit to his goalkeeper Marcel Galaszkiewicz for making several great saves at key times in the game. “There’s lots of respect. We have the utmost respect for their group of players and their coaching staff and I’m assuming it goes both ways. They’re just good games and fun to play.”

Next up, the United will travel north to face the Drillers in a rematch on Saturday, Jan. 15, before returning home to face the California Cougars of the U.S.-based Professional Arena Soccer League (PASL) on Sunday, Jan 23 (3 p.m. at the Subway Soccer Centre).