2019 HFX Wanderers FC season explained

Club:	HFX Wanderers
Season:	2019
Stadium:	Wanderers Grounds
Chrtitle:	President
Chairman:	Derek Martin
Mgrtitle:	Head coach
Manager:	Stephen Hart
League:	Canadian Premier League
League Result:	Spring: 4th Fall: 7th Overall: 7th
Cup1:	Canadian Championship
Cup1 Result:	Third qualifying round
League Topscorer:	Akeem Garcia (7 goals)
Season Topscorer:	Akeem Garcia (8 goals)
Largest Win:	2–0 (June 26 vs. Valour FC) and two other occasions
Largest Loss:	2–6 (July 27 vs. York 9 FC)
Highest Attendance:	6,244 (June 1 vs. Pacific FC)
Lowest Attendance:	3,854 (June 5 vs. Valour FC)
Average Attendance:	League: All:
Nextseason:	2020
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The 2019 HFX Wanderers FC season was the first season in the club's history having been founded on 5 May 2018, as well as the first season in Canadian Premier League (CPL) history. Stephen Hart was the club's first manager, with the team playing at Wanderers Grounds. The season covers the period from 1 November 2018 through to 31 October 2019. Hart, like his peers in the CPL, built a squad from the ground up, and made use of all available mechanisms for player recruitment: the CPL Open Trials, the U-Sports Draft, and benefiting from his domestic and international connections, particularly from his native Trinidad & Tobago.

Overview

The first ever player signed by the team was Canadian defender Zachary Sukunda on 29 November 2018, followed by a quartet of Trinidad & Tobago players in the new year. A contingent of Canadians followed before Hart turned his attention to signing three players from the CPL Open Trials:^[1] Kouamé Ouattara, Kodai Iida, and Mohamed Kourouma. Hart also signed all three U-Sports draft picks, and added some veteran attacking options in Luis Alberto Perea and Juan Diego Gutierrez. As the season approached and during the season, Hart raided League 1 Ontario club Vaughan Azzurri three times to round out his squad, signing Tomasz Skublak, Matthew Arnone and eventually, Duran Lee.

A short pre-season in April in the Dominican Republic saw HFX play only two matches, before playing its first ever competitive fixture on 28 April 2019, away at Pacific FC and losing 1–0. Following the defeat, HFX returned home to a raucous Wanderers Grounds on 4 May 2019, picking up its first win in history, defeating eventual champions Forge FC 2–1 with forward Akeem Garcia, scoring the team's first ever goal in the 30th minute. HFX would finish the Spring Season a respectable fourth place. In the Canadian Championship, HFX dispatched Vaughan Azzurri and Valour FC.

The Fall Season began optimistically on 6 July 2019 with the team recording a 1–0 win over York 9 FC and preparing to face Ottawa Fury FC of the United Soccer League Championship in the third preliminary round of the Canadian Championship. However, a congested fixture schedule would take its toll on the team, playing seven matches in eighteen days in July. HFX would lose all of them, bar one draw away to the afore-mentioned Ottawa Fury FC, which was insufficient to progress in the Canadian Championship. Throughout the year, HFX had had difficulty mustering much offense, which contributed to the slump. Improved defensive performances in September resulted in an uptick of form, but without much goalscoring, HFX could only muster six consecutive draws (a league record), surrendering the lead late on a number of occasions along the way. Combined with suggestions of locker room discord^[2] and Hart commenting on his players learning what it meant to be a professional,^[3] the Fall Season was difficult for HFX, finishing last which also “earned” the team the proverbial wooden spoon for 2019 as a whole. However, the year would end on a positive note, with Hart and company earning their first and only away win, 2–0 against York 9 FC. The Privateers 1882's supporter's group player of the year award went to centre-back, Matthew Arnone.

Off the pitch, the club was a tremendous success, the supporters regularly packing Wanderers Grounds to its limits and making it a difficult place to play for visiting teams. Indeed, in league play Cavalry FC was the only team to ever win at Wanderers Grounds all year. The boisterous atmosphere was the envy of the league and even attracted the notice of Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley who hoped his team would play there in the Canadian Championship.^[4]

A last place finish, however, was always going to mean high player turnover. Instead of announcing a list of players released at the end of the season, the club instead would announce returning players only over the course of the off-season.^[5]

Current squad

^[6]

No.	Name	Nationality	Position(s)	Date of birth (age)	Previous club
Goalkeepers
21	Jan-Michael Williams		GK	December 31, 2019	Sacachispas
50	Christian Oxner		GK	December 31, 2019	Saint Mary's Huskies
Defenders
3	André Bona		RB / CB	December 31, 2019	UQAM Citadins
4	Chakib Hocine		CB	December 31, 2019	Ekenäs
6	Chrisnovic N'sa		CB / CM	December 31, 2019	Montreal Impact Academy
16	Duran Lee		CB	December 31, 2019	Vaughan Azzurri
20	Ndzemdzela Langwa		LB	December 31, 2019	Socuéllamos
23	Matthew Arnone		CB	December 31, 2019	Vaughan Azzurri
24	Alex De Carolis		LB / CB	December 31, 2019	Umeå FC
25	Zachary Sukunda		RB	December 31, 2019	Northcote City
Midfielders
5	Elton John		CM / CB	December 31, 2019	San Juan Jabloteh
7	Juan Gutiérrez		LW / RW / AM	December 31, 2019	Sport Rosario
8	Elliot Simmons		CM	December 31, 2019	Dalkurd
9	Kodai Iida		AM	December 31, 2019	Washington Premier FC
12	Mohamed Kourouma			December 31, 2019	Miami City
13	Kouamé Ouattara		CM	December 31, 2019	CS Dieppe
15	Scott Firth		CM	December 31, 2019	Suburban FC
18	Andre Rampersad		CM	December 31, 2019	Santa Rosa
22	Abd-El-Aziz Yousef		RW / AM	December 31, 2019	Cambuur
Forwards
10	Luis Perea		ST	December 31, 2019	La Equidad
11	Akeem Garcia		CF / RW	December 31, 2019	Santa Rosa
14	Vincent Lamy		CF	December 31, 2019	Montreal Impact Academy
17	Tomasz Skublak		ST	December 31, 2019	Vaughan Azzurri

Transfers

In

No.	Pos.	Player	Transferred from	Fee/notes	Date	Source
25			Northcote City	Free Transfer		^[7]
21			Sacachispas	Free Transfer		^[8]
5			Queen's Park CC	Free Transfer
18			FC Santa Rosa	Free Transfer
11			FC Santa Rosa	Free Transfer
4			Ekenäs	Free Transfer		^[9]
14			Montreal Impact Academy	Free Transfer		^[10]
8			Dalkurd	Free Transfer
15			Suburban FC	Free Transfer		^[11]
20			Socuéllamos	Free Transfer
6			Montreal Impact Academy	Free Transfer
50			Saint Mary's Huskies	Selected 19th overall in the 2018 CPL–U Sports Draft		^[12]
24			Umeå FC	Free Transfer
13			CS Dieppe	Free Transfer		^[13]
9			Washington Premier FC	Free Transfer
10			La Equidad	Free Transfer		^[14]
7			Sport Rosario	Free Transfer
2			CBU Capers	Selected 5th overall in the 2018 CPL–U Sports Draft		^[15]
3			UQAM Citadins	Selected 10th overall in the 2018 CPL–U Sports Draft
12			FC Miami City	Free Transfer		^[16]
22			SC Cambuur	Free Transfer
17			Vaughan Azzurri	Free Transfer		^[17]
23			Vaughan Azzurri	Free Transfer		^[18]
16			Vaughan Azzurri	Free Transfer		^[19]

Draft picks

HFX Wanderers selected the following players in the 2018 CPL–U Sports Draft on November 12, 2018.^[20] Draft picks are not automatically signed to the team roster. Only those who are signed to a contract will be listed as transfers in.

Round	Selection	Pos.	Player	Nationality	University
1	5				CBU Capers
2	10				UQAM Citadins
3	19				Saint Mary's Huskies

Out

Competitions

Match times are Atlantic Daylight Time (UTC−3).

Canadian Premier League

See main article: article.

Spring season

Matches

Fall season

Matches

Canadian Championship

See main article: article and 2019 Canadian Championship.

Third qualifying round

Statistics

Squad and statistics

|- |-|colspan="11"|Players who left during the season:|}

Top scorers

width=10	Rank	width=10	Nat.	Player	width=10	Pos.	width=80	CPL Spring season	width=80	CPL Fall season	width=80	Canadian Championship	width=80	TOTAL
1			FW	3	4	1	8
2			FW	2	1	2	5
3			MF	1	0	3	4
			FW	0	1	3	4
5			DF	0	2	0	2
			MF	0	2	0	2
7			DF	0	0	1	1
			MF	0	1	0	1
			MF	1	0	0	1
			DF	1	0	0	1
Own goals				0	2	1	3
Totals				8	13	11	32 Top assists width=10 Rank width=10 Nat. Player width=10 Pos. width=80 CPL Spring season width=80 CPL Fall season width=80 Canadian Championship width=80 TOTAL 1 MF 1 2 1 4 2 MF 2 0 1 3 3 DF 0 1 1 2 FW 0 1 1 2 5 DF 0 0 1 1 MF 0 0 1 1 MF 0 1 0 1 FW 1 0 0 1 MF 0 1 0 1 MF 0 0 1 1 Totals 4 6 7 17 Clean sheets width=10 Rank width=10 Nat. Player width=80 CPL Spring season width=80 CPL Fall season width=80 Canadian Championship width=80 TOTAL 1 1 5 0 6 2 1 1 1 3 Totals 2 6 1 9 Disciplinary record No. Pos. Nat. Player CPL Spring season CPL Fall season Canadian Championship TOTAL 1 GK 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 2 DF 1 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 3 DF 3 0 4 0 2 0 9 0 4 DF 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 5 MF 0 0 3 0 0 0 3 0 6 DF 2 0 3 0 0 0 5 0 7 MF 1 0 2 0 1 0 4 0 8 MF 1 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 9 MF 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 0 10 FW 1 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 11 FW 1 0 1 0 1 0 3 0 13 MF 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 16 DF 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 17 FW 1 0 3 0 3 0 7 0 18 MF 1 0 3 0 2 0 6 0 20 DF 2 0 1 0 0 0 3 0 23 DF 2 0 1 0 0 0 3 0 24 DF 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 50 GK 0 0 2 0 0 0 2 0 Totals 18 0 31 1 13 0 62 1 External links 2019 HFX Wanderers FC season at Official Site

Notes and References

1. Web site: Canadian Premier League schedules cross-country tryouts. Sportsnet . 3 December 2019.
2. Web site: HFX coach Hart sets plans in motion for 2020. 8 October 2019 . CanPL.ca . 3 December 2019.
3. Web site: Halifax Wanderers Share Massive Updates on 2020 Season (And Beyond). 31 October 2019 . Northern Tribune . 3 December 2019.
4. Web site: TFC reveals Halifax envy en route to Canadian Championship final. 17 September 2019 . CanPL.ca . 3 December 2019.
5. Web site: Roster Analysis: How do HFX Wanderers look heading into end of 2019?. 22 November 2019 . CanPL.ca . 3 December 2019.
6. Web site: Roster . HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC . 2 July 2019.
7. Web site: HFX Wanderers FC announce historic first player signing. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. November 29, 2018. November 29, 2018. November 29, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20181129225223/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/hfx-wanderers-fc-announce-historic-first-player-signing. dead.
8. Web site: Wanderers announce first ever international player signings as Trinidad and Tobago quartet. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. January 10, 2019. January 10, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190111055026/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-announce-first-ever-international-player-signings-as-trinidad-and-tobago-quartet. January 11, 2019. dead.
9. Web site: Wanderers solidify back line by signing defensive leader Chakib Hocine. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. January 16, 2019. January 16, 2019. January 16, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190116201120/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-solidify-back-line-by-signing-defensive-leader-chakib-hocine. dead.
10. Web site: Wanderers invest in youth with pair of new player signings. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. January 22, 2019. January 22, 2019. November 7, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201107225854/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-invest-in-youth-with-pair-of-new-player-signings. dead.
11. Web site: Halifax-born midfielder Scott Firth seals 'dream' move to Wanderers. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. January 30, 2019. January 30, 2019. January 31, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190131040213/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/halifax-born-midfielder-scott-firth-seals-dream-move-to-wanderers. dead.
12. Web site: Wanderers sign Halifax-born goalkeeper, versatile defender. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. February 20, 2019. February 20, 2019. February 21, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190221000311/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-sign-halifax-born-goalkeeper-versatile-defender. dead.
13. Web site: Maritime and Japanese trialists wow Wanderers, earn contracts with club. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. February 21, 2019. February 21, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190222042001/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/maritime-and-japanese-trialists-wow-wanderers-earn-contracts-with-club. February 22, 2019. dead.
14. Web site: Wanderers bring in finesse and firepower with South American duo. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. February 25, 2019. February 25, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190226045919/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-bring-in-finesse-and-firepower-with-south-american-duo. February 26, 2019. dead.
15. Web site: Wanderers sign U SPORTS draft picks Bona & Schaale. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. March 29, 2019. March 29, 2019. March 29, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190329222626/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-sign-u-sports-draft-picks-bona-schaale. dead.
16. Web site: HFX Wanderers sign pair of Canadian wingers. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. April 4, 2019. April 4, 2019.
17. Web site: Wanderers step up attacking options with Canadian striker signing. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. April 9, 2019. April 9, 2019. May 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190513161033/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-step-up-attacking-options-with-canadian-striker-signing. dead.
18. Web site: Wanderers add height and grit to squad by signing Canadian defender. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. May 1, 2019. May 1, 2019. May 1, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190501202058/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-add-height-and-grit-to-squad-by-signing-canadian-defender. dead.
19. Web site: Wanderers bolster backline with signing of Canadian defender Duran Lee. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. August 13, 2019. August 13, 2019. August 13, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190813170917/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-bolster-backline-with-signing-of-canadian-defender-duran-lee. dead.
20. Web site: Halifax born goalkeeper among three University draft picks for HFX Wanderers. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. November 12, 2018. May 26, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190526020901/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/halifax-born-goalkeeper-among-three-university-draft-picks-for-hfx-wanderers. dead.
21. Web site: Wanderers 'sad' to see Schaale go, but hopeful of a return next season. HFXWanderersfc.canpl.ca. HFX Wanderers FC. May 1, 2019. May 1, 2019. August 10, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190810190101/https://hfxwanderersfc.canpl.ca/article/wanderers-sad-to-see-schaale-go-but-hopeful-of-a-return-next-season. dead.