{"id":24227,"date":"2019-07-11T18:59:33","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24227"},"modified":"2019-07-11T18:59:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:59:43","slug":"york9-fc-preps-for-historic-first-meeting-with-mls-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/york9-fc-preps-for-historic-first-meeting-with-mls-squad\/","title":{"rendered":"York9 FC preps for historic first meeting with MLS squad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

The milestones just\nkeep coming in the short history of the York9 FC: yet none have been greater\nthan the challenge that awaits the club on Wednesday night at York Lions\nStadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the first time in\nfranchise history, the Canadian Premier League club kicks off against a Major\nLeague Soccer foe, in an attempt to slay the giant that is the Montreal Impact\nin the Canadian Championship ladder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a heck of\na ride,\u201d said York9 FC midfielder Ryan Telfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The York Region club\ngot through both Quebec\u2019s A.S. Blainsville and Edmonton FC to reach the third\nround of the Canadian Championship tournament, the first round to feature MLS\nclubs, including the Impact who earned a bye on the ladder. A surprise win\nagainst the Montreal club could set up a date with the powerhouse Vancouver\nWhitecaps of the MLS in the penultimate round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinally, to have a\nCPL team playing against an MLS team, for me and the rest of the guys we\u2019re\nvery excited,\u201d said Telfer. \u201cTo be able to display our talents and see how we match\nup against an MLS team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historic meeting\nwill be the second major milestone the York squad will have set in the\ninaugural season of the CPL: apart from being the first CPL team to take on an\nMLS opponent, York also kicked off the first-ever league game against\nHamilton\u2019s Forge FC in May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Telfer sees the\nupcoming challenge as a historic opportunity to set a precedent for the budding\nleague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really want to\nshowcase what this league is all about,\u201d said Telfer. \u201cAnd how we match up\nagainst those other opponents. This is going to be a different level of\nintensity\u2026this is not going to be a regular CPL game, this is going to be\nagainst higher tier opponents, and these guys are not ones to be pushed\naround.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Impact\u2019s mark on\nthe highest level of North American soccer has been a positive one since it\nentered the league in 2012: Montreal became the first Canadian team to advance\nto the CONCACAF final in 2015, and were runners-up in the Canadian Championship\ntwo seasons ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting,\u201d said\nYork9 coach Jimmy Brennan. \u201cIt\u2019s great for the game. Our guys are really\nlooking forward to playing against a historic club that has been around a long\ntime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(Montreal) have done\na wonderful job building the stadium, building the club to where it is today.\nWe hope to get there one day too with York9. It\u2019s a wonderful opportunity.\nThey\u2019re a very organized team, and they\u2019ve got a lot of good players. They\u2019ll\nwant to win. It\u2019s going to be a good footballing match. Both teams want to\nplay. You hope it\u2019s not one of those where we cancel each other out, you hope\nit\u2019s free flowing and a great game for the spectators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brennan downplayed\nthe challenge of facing off against one of North America\u2019s top teams, calling\nthe contest just \u201canother match.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnother game that we\nwant to get at, want to dominate, want to win. We\u2019ve got our eyes set on two\nthings this season: Get to the CPL final and win the Voyageurs Cup, and go\nas far as we can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose are our goals.\nIt doesn\u2019t matter who we\u2019re playing against. The whole David vs. Goliath\nthing doesn\u2019t affect us any way whatsoever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Telfer, who\nadmitted his team is considered the underdog in the historic match, it\u2019s all\nabout the mental aspect if his squad is going to stand a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe just need to go in there with a mentality\nthat we have nothing to lose, and that we really want to prove ourselves to\nthis team and to the whole nation. I\u2019m very excited to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The milestones just keep coming in the short history of the York9 FC: yet none have been greater than the challenge that awaits the club on Wednesday night at York Lions Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6iL","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 14:01:19","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\/24227","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=24227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}