FURY FC GLAD TO BE HOME AFTER WICKED ROAD TRIP
Travel-weary squad returns to TD Place to play host to Riverhounds on Sunday
The head coach, Nikola Popovic, said there were many times he woke up unsure about what city he was in.
The captain, Carl Haworth, couldn’t begin to count the number of nights he slept in his own bed in June.
There was that United Soccer League game at TD Place way back on June 2, with their only other sighting near Bank Street for game action being a June 27 matchup with AS Blainville in the Canadian Soccer Championship series.
Discount that contest, really an exhibition, and Ottawa Fury FC has travelled 6,678 kilometres, mostly by air, for the equivalent of a direct flight to Rome.
Fury FC team members can only wish their travel was that simple.
They’ve been making connections and sitting in airport lounges for most of the past four weeks on the way to games in North Carolina, Atlanta, Blainville, N.Y., Cincinnati and finally Indianapolis before flying home Thursday with little time to prepare for a home game Sunday at 1 p.m. against the Pittsburgh Riverhounds.
All of that made assistant GM Carrie McKay the Fury FC MVP for the month for her work in conjunction with USL’s travel service.
“It was a crazy month,” Popovic said Friday. “There were many nights I woke up and didn’t know where I was.
“The travel in the USL or even the MSL is never easy. You can be headed anywhere in North America and doing it with connections. It just seemed (the month) was all planes and buses. One or two road games in a row, yes, but three, four and five … It’s too much. Players can’t play six or seven games in a row away.
“There was no training really for the whole stretch. All we could do was try and have the players recover. I’m just glad nobody got injured.”
The wicked schedule had Fury FC playing seven games in 21 nights and it was to the team’s credit that it managed a couple of league wins against two losses and a no-decision in Atlanta because of a heavy storm that suspended the match. In addition, there were two victories against AS Blainville, earning Ottawa the right to face Toronto FC in a Canadian Championship semifinal series later this month.
“I think it says something about the resiliency of this squad and the commitment to tactics that we were able to work through this stretch and be really in a good situation moving forward,” Haworth said. “It really was crazy.
“Really, the whole time it was game day, then recovery day, then recover again, then prepare (for opponent), then game day again.
“That’s not to mention to the 40 degree (Celsius) we seemed to be always playing in. We’re just happy to be home. I can’t tell you how many nights I’ve slept in my own bed lately.”
So, with their travel legs somewhere behind them, Fury FC members hope to kick-start their USL playoff push against a Pittsburgh side that has just two more wins, yet sits second in the Eastern Conference, 10 points up on Ottawa and just three points behind first-place Cincinnati FC.
The key statistical numbers with Pittsburgh are a league-low single defeat in 16 matches, a league-best seven goals against and the fourth-best goal-differential in 32-team USL at plus-13.
So the Riverhounds don’t blow out many opponents. They just hang around and collect points, having done so in 15 of 16 matches (eight wins and seven draws).
“I’m proud of how we have played,” Popovic said. “All the effort the guys put it. This team is growing. It’s 100 per cent better than when we started.
“Pittsburgh is always a difficult team to play, but we have to have a good game (at home) and earn the three points.”