Going into this past Saturday afternoon's League1 Ontario final, there was an air of concern swirling around the Ontario Soccer Centre Stadium as Oakville’s Blue Devils FC prepared to take the field against the Vaughan Azzurri.
This year, Vaughan's scintillating offence has been a sight to behold as they notched 76 goals over just 21 games. The club’s inability to get results against the other top teams was the only real glimmer of hope for the Blue Devils. Vaughan tied with Oakville, Simcoe, and Alliance United.
While the club had run the table unbeaten across 21 games, they'd shown it wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility that they could be caught off guard. They certainly struggled to break down Simcoe in the semi-finals, before eventually getting the win.
That, however, was not to be the case on Saturday.
Despite the early pressure being applied by the Blue Devils, they wouldn’t find any joy in front of the goal with several early opportunities going by the wayside in the first few minutes.
In the 5th minute of play striker, Taha Ilyass was brought to the ground in a rather innocuous play sustaining an injury to his ankle that would render him lame for the rest of the match. Only moments later Mario McLennon would open a gash across his left cheek that required immediate medical attention.
The Blue Devils would play for nearly five minutes total with only ten men on the pitch.
In the 16th minute midfielder, Vaughan targeted a matchup between their star striker Kosi Nwafornso and McLennon who had just returned to the pitch. The Vaughan Striker made a lovely turn on the ball and fed it into the path of Jason Mills who stepped into the ball and blasted it past Lucas Birnstingl to open the scoring.
14 minutes later, Kosi Nwafornso would give the Azzurri a second, off of some tight passing between the Vaughan attackers with very little space to operate in the box.
Just 13 minutes later, Nwafornso would be awarded a dubious penalty after he pushed the ball past Birnstingl towards the touchline and immediately dove, drawing a penalty. League co-leading scorer Massimo Ferrin would step up and slot home the penalty giving the Azzurri a 3-0 lead.
Nwafornso would be sprung in alone on goal again three minutes later and chipped the ball past Birnstingl once again to make it a 4-goal lead for Vaughan.
Deep into additional time, the Blue Devils would break the goose egg through Taha Ilyass. The beleaguered striker brought down a ball at the top of the 18-yard box, and in one motion turned to face goal and struck it plumb into the back of the Vaughan goal to give Oakville a glimmer of hope going into the second half.
Promptly after the restart of the second half, Kosi Nwafornso finished off his hat-trick to make it a 5-1 final, with that goal the last gusts of wind were taken from the Blue Devils' sails and Vaughan would kill out the game by forcing them to chase the ball around the pitch looking to claw their way back into the match.
With the victory, Vaughan is crowned Leauge1 Ontario Champions and will gain an automatic birth in the 2023 Canadian Championship where they will play one of the eight Canadian Premier League sides or even one of the MLS sides, depending on the random draw.