Valour FC will embark on their first ever road trip this weekend as all seven of the Canadian Premier League clubs gather in the Dominican Republic for pre-season matches.
“You get to see the different sides of the player,” Valour FC general manager and head coach Rob Gale said. “How well do they travel and deal with hotel rooms, different foods, times changes? All of the things that you’re going to involve in the course of a season.”
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After a month of training camp, players will be trading in the snowy sidelines of Investors Group Field for the sun of the Caribbean.
“Getting them away in a bit of a bubble where there’s no distractions,” Gale said. “They don’t have to worry about going home and hoovering, and cooking their dinner.
With it being an all new team, the trip will be a chance to really get to know their teammates with players hailing from eight different countries.
“You learn new things about people. People might like to read books, go on walks, whatever it is,” defender Jordan Murrell said.
“You find out more about each other when you get away from the pitch. And you start doing things off the pitch, it only makes you better on the pitch.”
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But at least for this trip, the wins and losses won’t matter, as Valour FC is scheduled to play a pair of pre-season matches against local teams during their week long stay.
“The results are irrelevant at this stage,” Gale said. “You can be brilliant in pre-season, and it’s not going to win us a title at the end of it.”
And being brilliant in the exhibition games won’t be enough to earn a starting job yet, as Gale has no intentions of making a decision on his starting 11 anytime in the near future.
“I would hope not to because that means the other 8 or 10 aren’t competing hard enough,” Gale said. “That should be a fluid thing. It should be day-to-day. It’s not what have you done for me lately, it’s what are you going to do for me today.”
A little over three weeks remains until their season opener in B.C. on May 1.
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