Foothills FC hopes to keep bucking odds
Second-year team quietly confident as they face Michigan in PDL final
When you’ve been defying the odds for as long as Foothills FC, there’s not much that’s going to faze you.
Not even a championship game against one of the Premier Development League’s longtime powerhouses is going to cause the Calgary squad to lose much sleep.
They know that what they’re doing works. Of course they do. It’s got them this far, after all.
With a showdown against the Michigan Bucks on tap for Saturday afternoon (5:30 p.m., YouTube) the Foothills squad is giving off an air of quiet confidence as they get set to play for their first PDL title.
“There’s a quiet focus about the boys,” said Foothills FC head coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr. “That’s the way we’ve approached the whole season.
“Every game has been a doubleheader against a big side … every game that we’ve approached, we’ve done it with preparation and when you’ve got great preparation the boys are at ease with what they have to do.”
If the Calgary crew wins on Sat- urday, it will cap off a truly remarkable season. In only their second year in the PDL — North America’s top under-23 development league — Foothills FC took the league by storm, finishing atop the Northwest Division standings and winning the Western Conference Champions. Then, they booked a place in the league final last weekend with an emphatic 3-0 shutout against the Ocean City Nor’easters.
But the Bucks present a whole new challenge. The Michigan team is the most successful franchise in the PDL and will become the first team in league history to win three championships if they beat the visiting Calgarians on Saturday.
“I think we have to be the underdogs because we’re still a second-year franchise and Michigan has broken all the PDL records,” Wheeldon said. “We can’t go in there as favourites because this is our first final. I think we’ve played that card well and for the boys there’s no pressure.
“They know what (the Bucks’) strengths are and what we need to do to nullify them, and we know what their weaknesses are and how to exploit them.”
Of course, that’s easier said than done.
The Bucks haven’t conceded a single goal in the PDL playoffs and recorded 10 shutouts in 14 regular season game, while they also have five players booked on the PDL Top Prospects list, as well as three strikers with at least 10 goals.
So the hosts can score and they can defend.
Fortunately, the same can be said of Foothills FC.
The Calgary squad boasts two players in on the PDL Top Prospects list, including goal-poacher Dominic Russo, who climbed to No. 12 on the most-recent list.
“Dominic deservedly gets a lot of the headlines, but we were looking at it the other day and I think we’ve had 14 goal scorers in the squad and when you’ve got that kind of firepower, goals are going to come by committee,” Wheeldon said. “If our front line is getting shut down then our midfield can chip in, and if our midfielders are getting tracked then our defenders are coming up for set-plays and are a threat. I think we have goals coming from every position.
“Every single game has been a tough one, and we’re getting used to playing in tough games.”