{"id":11471,"date":"2015-07-28T20:19:19","date_gmt":"2015-07-29T00:19:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=11471"},"modified":"2015-08-19T15:08:52","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T19:08:52","slug":"aurora-united-football-club-hosts-friendly-with-peruvian-pan-am-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-united-football-club-hosts-friendly-with-peruvian-pan-am-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora United Football Club hosts friendly with Peruvian Pan Am team"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Brazil and Panama battled it out for Pan American bronze in Hamilton on Saturday, Aurora got its own taste of Pan Am competition.<\/p>\n

The Peruvian U22 team, fresh off blanking Canada in their final match of the Pan Am Games, was at Aurora\u2019s Highland Park to take on the town\u2019s respective U22 squad, the Aurora United Football Club (AUFC).<\/p>\n

The international friendly was the result of \u201cpulling a lot of strings\u201d by AYSC Executive Director Jimmy Brennan, a big move by the soccer veteran in his first year on the job. Brennan pulled on the Canadian kit fifty times over his sixteen year career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to have international soccer come to the Town of Aurora,\u201d the Newmarket native said before the event. \u201cWith the relationships I\u2019ve made throughout my career, it is essential that I utilize these partnerships to benefit our Club. It\u2019s important that our young players come out and watch and it is exciting that we will have a bit of \u2018Pan Am\u2019 flavour in our backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a friend of his from the international soccer scene that reached out with the opportunity, asking Brennan if he would like to be involved in a friendly match with the Peruvian team before they headed home. After some quick arrangements with the Aurora Soccer Club to make use of their clubhouse and facilities, the game was on, and the crowd came out in droves. <\/p>\n

The young Peruvians proved tough from the opening touch. They held most of the possession in the first half, earning some \u2018oohs and ahs\u2019 from the crowd with their nice volleys and soft touches. A rocket off the crossbar and down to make it 2 \u2013 0 before the half drew an especially big reaction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kids are very good!\u201d said Ben Steenhorst of the Aurora Soccer Club, and 2014 Aurora Sports Hall of Fame inductee who came out for the match.<\/p>\n

To the delight of the crowd, it was the Aurora squad that came out pressing in the second half, with Niklas Bauer sending a header off a corner kick just over the woodwork. But it was the Peruvians who kept finding the back of the net, not by any fault of United keeper Pedram Ahmadpour, who made some wild diving saves across the goal mouth in the match. Peru cruised to an eventual 5 \u2013 0 victory.<\/p>\n

Andrew Fearman had perhaps the best moment of the match for AUFC late in the game, a free kick that curled around the line of Peruvians only to hit the bar and go high over the net.<\/p>\n

But the team was all smiles as they shook the hands of their Peruvian counterparts and headed to the clubhouse, where a post-game reception took place.
\n\u201cWhat a great opportunity for our guys,\u201d said coach Tony Greco. \u201cAnytime you get an opportunity like this, it\u2019s about more than just the score, it\u2019s the experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brennan had just stepped into the executive position two months before AUFC took to the field for the first time ever this May, and under the leadership of Greco, coach Bobby Ghiravanian, and AYSC technical director Dave Diplacido, the team has immediately flourished. The AUFC currently leads the Central Division of the Ontario Soccer League (OSL) with a record of 6-1-1.<\/p>\n

The AUFC play their home games Mondays in August at 9 p.m. at St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic High School.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Brazil and Panama battled it out for Pan American bronze in Hamilton on Saturday, Aurora got its own taste of Pan Am competition.<\/p>\n

The Peruvian U22 team, fresh off blanking Canada…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/2015-07-30-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-2Z1","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 06:30:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}