Where are Pacific headed going into 2022?

Welcome to the first post on The Tridents UK blog, here both of us will give our thoughts and feelings as we move closer to the 2022 Canadian Premier League Season. After winning the Championship last year & exodus of players that followed, we were feeling pretty deflated, not only was it players that we lost but the wonderfully charismatic coach in Pa-Modou Kah. It was almost like a sense of mourning but we couldn't help but feel like a slight step backwards in his coaching career, moving from the top flight to a secondary team of the MLS in North Texas SC. However, we are incredibly pleased to see James Merriman be given the role as Head Coach after being of the club since its first game and knowing he is more than capable in doing an incredible job, we feel like he's the perfect replacement for Kah.

Arrivals & Departures

Over the past week or so, the club have started to announce new arrivals & player re-signings plus a departure or two. Let's jump to our opinions on these

Let's start with the departures......

Terran Campbell and Alessandro Hojabrpour were announced to depart and join rival club Forge, which to us is a very odd move as these were players that we were expecting to be wearing the purple again next season. Victor Blasco left to join a side in Honduras which was something that we expected. After he sadly dealt with a family bereavement, having spoken to him over twitter, we knew that it had a huge impact on him, we knew a move was coming soon after.

Now the big departure, MacNaughton leaving for Toronto FC. We are so proud to see MacNaughton make a move to the MLS, after 3 seasons of continual development, he well and truly flourished under Kah & was rightly given the chance to make a big move. He was by far our player of the season. Another name to throw in, Kadin Chung who is currently on trial with Toronto! The club also said goodbye to Ollie Bassett, Robert Boskovic, Isaac Boehmer and Duran Lee, Ollie Bassett has since joined Atletico Ottawa.

Now to the re-signings and new signings.....

Amer Didic makes the biggest move from FC Edmonton to Pacific FC, one of the standout defensive players in the entire CPL, he'll be the perfect replacement for MacNaughton. The resignings came in thick and fast with club Captain Jamar Dixon returning with Goalkeeper Callum Irving also resigning. TMG got given a multi-year deal, with Josh Heard coming back for 2022. Heard had come on leaps and bounds since the Island Games, becoming a key figure for PFC over the course of the Championship winning season.

Diaz comes back for 2022 following an impressive 2021 season & Baldisimo, Dada-Luke, Young, Gazdov, and MacNaughtons centre back partner Samake were also announced. Samake came on such a long way from his forgetful Island Games performances becoming one of Pacific FC's most developed players over 2021. The last standout player to return is Manny Aparicio who's spell of good form towards the back end of the title winning season deserved a new contract.

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Updated; Feb 17th, 2022