By Gavin Axelrod
The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold men’s soccer team looks to swap defeat in the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) final last Saturday for championship glory in Kamloops B.C. at the U Sports national tournament from Nov. 10 to 13.
It’s been nearly a decade since the university competed for a national title in men’s soccer. U Sports was still called Canadian Interuniversity Sport and head coach Filip Prostran was only an assistant when the team finished seventh at the event in 2013.
But this year’s Bold squad has been a force to reckon with in the country. They went 9-3 in the regular season, didn’t lose back-to-back matches at all and have been ranked as high as third in U Sports this year.
“This team has a certain level of fight and grit that is really hard to explain,” said Prostran. “There’s this confident feeling within the group that no matter the situation, up down or even, that we can make it happen.”
TMU opened the season with a 2-1 loss against the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks back in September. Three players on the team were shown red cards in the match and another pair were warned by the referee with yellow cards.
“This team has a certain level of fight and grit that is really hard to explain”
Fifth-year goalkeeper Ali Ghazanfari—one of the players booted from the match—said it was an important lesson to learn early in the season. Ghazanfari added that the season-opener helped the team develop a mentality that if the squad didn’t beat itself, no team could beat them.
“As a team we kind of lost the plot,” he said. “We learned and we just realized ‘Hey we lost ourselves this game.’”
This year has been Ghazanfari’s first season in net for the Bold since 2019.
He explained that after his fourth season with the team in 2019, he and Prostran discussed next steps. Prostran wanted to bring back Praveen Ahilan, another one of the team’s top goalies, who still had U Sports eligibility left. He said the original plan was for Ahilan to play in 2020 and for himself to get back in net the following year.
The plan was pushed back a year with the COVID-19 pandemic wiping out the 2020 campaign. Ahilan took the starting reigns for the team in 2021 and Ghazanfari stepped away in pursuit of his master’s degree and worked a full-time job.
Ghazanfari said he didn’t play soccer from November 2019 until this past March, but it’d be hard to tell based on his play this season. He’s posted six shutouts—also known as clean sheets—in the regular season and playoffs combined.
He’s ready to go out with a bang in his fifth season playing for the team and seventh overall with the Bold program.
“It actually feels like it was written for me,” he said. “I’ve been here for seven years, I’ve had seven attempts to make it to nationals and in my last year this happened. It just feels surreal.”
The Bold will have their fair share of supporters watching the games, even if the national tournament is on the other side of the country. And one of those fans is TMU president Mohamed Lachemi. While he won’t be with the team in B.C. this week, the self-proclaimed avid soccer fan will be keeping up to date with the action. Lachemi told The Eyeopener he was thrilled the Bold hosted the OUA final, even if they didn’t come away with the gold medal.
“The players have been inspiring to watch and I’m very proud of their achievements to date”
“The players have been inspiring to watch and I’m very proud of their achievements to date,” he said. “And we’re also excited to see the team compete at the upcoming youth sports national championship in Kamloops, B.C.”
TMU’s road to nationals started with a 2-1 win over the Carleton University Ravens in an OUA quarter-final match.
Carleton tied the game with a penalty kick in the 71st minute, wiping away a Bold lead that stood for 22 minutes. TMU managed to absorb the blow and in the 90th minute, were rewarded for their perseverance when Ameer Kinani stepped up to bury a penalty kick, which stood as the winner.
“In years past, those situations have happened in the Final Four and big moments and for whatever reason, the team didn’t find a way,” said Prostran. “But this team, I just felt good. Even when they scored, I still felt confident that we were getting through that game but I didn’t know how or what. I just knew that the resolve of the team wasn’t defeated.”
TMU then welcomed the University of Waterloo Warriors to Downsview Park on Nov. 2 for a semi-final clash. The Warriors shocked the country by knocking off an undefeated York Lions team in a quarter-final match on Oct. 29.
However, the Bold potted two goals in the opening 10 minutes of the match. They lead wire-to-wire and kept their composure through a lengthy fog delay, earning a 3-0 victory and securing a trip to nationals.
Soccer is commonly referred to as “The Beautiful Game” and one of the beauties of TMU’s philosophy this season has been its depth.
Prostran is also quick to point this out too, noting how on any given day, the team can expect to flex its depth and anyone in the lineup can step up to make a key contribution. The Bold also had four players in defender Kai Martin, captain Christian Westlaken, forward Luca Di Marco and midfielder Juan Pablo Delgadillo receive OUA All-Star nods.
Another player to watch in TMU’s lineup at nationals is second-year Justin Santos, who put up nine goals and three assists across the regular season and playoffs.
“The scary thing is Justin still has lots of room for improvement,” said Prostran. “This year there’s been big moments, he just seems to show up in the playoffs and the clinching games. He’s just always there.”
TMU has been seeded sixth at the national tournament and will face the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderdbirds on Thursday. Kick-off for TMU’s nationals opener is set for 4:30 p.m. ET.
UBC won the Canada West title on Nov. 6 against the University of Calgary Dinos. The two squads needed seven rounds of penalty kicks before the Thunderbirds captured their fifth-straight conference title.
But Prostran said as long the Bold stay true to themselves they can compete with any team in the country at the tournament.
“If we’re just ourselves individually and collectively, we’ll be in every game and no matter the result, we’ll walk off the field with our head high,” said Prostran. “We just really have to be ourselves and I think that will be good enough to accomplish what we want to accomplish.”
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