Lions Park in Brantford will be the site of the 2016 Canadian Soccer League opener, a clash between Brantford Galaxy and visiting Toronto Atomic to kickoff a four-month long regular season leading to the playoffs and the CSL Championship late October. It’s a 7 pm kickoff that Saturday night on May 21, the beginning of a season of Saturday home games for the Galaxy, a preferred change from the Sunday fixtures of 2015. Tomoslav Dancetovic resumes as head coach.
Atomic ended the inaugural 2015 season in a respectable fifth position of 12 in the CSL First Division standings, but owner/GM Ihor Prokipchuk is looking to improve the team’s performance this upcoming campaign by emphasizing a greater team effort than was apparent in 2015. “I was really quite happy with our performance last year, and we do have some very good players, but I think we can improve this season,” he said. Vasil Ischak has been named head coach, with midfielder Michael Tischer the team captain.
Other changes for a new season in the CSL include the relocation of Scarborough SC to the attractive Birchmount Stadium with its increased capacity seating. Other announcements by Scarborough GM Kiril Dimitrov include the appointment for 2016 of Ricardo Munguia Perez as the new head coach. Munguia, nicknamed El Ringo, a product of the fames Veracruz organization, is a former Mexican youth international, having played in the FIFA 1993 World Youth Championship. He was also in the side that won a silver medal for Mexico in the 1995 Olympic Games.
Munguia, a defender, has played his entire career between Mexico and Canada, having turned out 23 times for the Toronto Lynx in 1999 and following a period in Mexico, he appeared in the CSL with Serbian White Eagles in 2011 and turned out for expansion team Scarborough in 2015.
FC Ukraine United, a CSL expansion team this year, has enjoyed prominence in Ontario for more than 10 years, won the Annual Olympiakos Soccer Tournament in Toronto last month. Ukraine will play its upcoming CSL home games at the St. Joan of Arc ground at Maple, just north of the city.
Hamilton City spokesperson Kathleen Nurse reports high local interest in the new Hamilton City team playing out of the Cardinal Newman ground at Stoney Creek on the out outskirts of the city. “There are a lot of very good players in the city and it’s been a busy time conducting tryouts,” she explains. Home games in Steeltown are scheduled Friday and Saturday evenings.
Coming up next: Milton, Serbian White Eagles, York Region Shooters prepare for First Division action, while London City and SC Waterloo will accompany CSL reserve teams for kickoff in the Second Division
League Formation – 2016
FIRST DIVISION SECOND DIVISION
Brantford Galaxy Brantford Galaxy ‘B’
Hamilton City London City
Milton SC Serbian White Eagles ‘B’
Scarborough SC Toronto Atomic ‘B’
Serbian White Eagles SC Waterloo
Toronto Atomic SC York Region Shooters ‘B’
Ukraine United FC
York Region Shooters
