PICTURE: Kiril Dimitrov (right) overcomes an FC Vorkuta challenge during the regular season. The Scarborough player-coach missed the semifinal and final championship games but was busy on the other side of the touch-line to assist in the Toronto east-end team’s first championship victory.
He’s been through the heavy going that is the Canadian Soccer League First Division and will undergo anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee surgery the week of November 18, but Kiril Dimitrov, player-coach and GM of new CSL champions Scarborough, considers the championship final 2-0 victory over FC Ukraine United was well worth the almost uninterrupted bouts of pain experienced late in the season.
Dimitrov missed playing in the semifinal and final following knee damage, but many consider his contribution from the other side of the touch-line as productive as his playing skills and lifting the championship trophy at Centennial Stadium was proof in the pudding.
Fact is, Dimitrov created and readied the Scarborough club for championship professional soccer from scratch. Following his transfer from Belasitsa Petrich of Bulgaria in 2009 to the Canadian Soccer League’s Serbian White Eagles, followed by a season with SC Waterloo, the midfielder/forward launched Scarborough as an expansion team in the CSL in 2013.
A Scarborough resident in what is some of the best soccer territory in Canada, the Bulgarian-born Dimitrov considered his community in Toronto’s east side deserved of professional soccer. Following a period playing out of Downsview Park in Toronto, the new club moved to Birchmount Stadium in Scarborough, the home of the popular Robbie Tournament and billed as the largest charity soccer tournament in the world and held annually for 52 years.
Following a modest beginning in the CSL First Division in its first season, Scarborough climbed up the standings to be second in the 2019 just ended. The team made the post season championship playoffs in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 to be finalists in 2017 and 2018 and champions on October 26, 2019.
Following a championship final defeat in a penalty shootout win by York Region Shooters in 2017, Dimitrov said “We will win this very soon,” a pronouncement held true with the 2019 2-0 defeat of FC Ukraine United.
Following knee surgery, Dimitrov, 34, will prepare during the winter months for Scarborough’s 2020 season kickoff, to again be active both sides of the touch-line, but this time around his club will be known as the CSL defending champions.