Never before had so many teammates shouted to one another en français during a CPL match.
Supra du Québec, away from their Greater Montreal home base, played their first match in club history in the West Coast rain at Pacific FC’s Starlight Stadium. Coached by Nick Razzaghi and captained by four-time CPL champion David Choinière, Supra lost the expected-goals battle 2.26 to 1.56 but won the match 3–2.
Pacific made good on coach James Merriman’s insistence that they needed to come out of the gates stronger than last Saturday, when Cavalry quickly took control at Starlight. This time, the Tridents played front-foot football from the outset and kept the lion’s share of possession. The best early chances, however, fell to Supra’s Cameroonian-born striker, Loïc Kwemi.
In the 34th minute, Kwemi’s left-footed shot opened the scoring. Pacific seemed to switch off mentally after the goals in this match, and Kwemi nearly doubled his tally on two occasions over the next four minutes.
The bulk of the scoring came in the second half, starting with a Marcos Bustos top-corner beauty to make it 1–1 in the 53rd. Supra responded to the equalizer by raising their intensity, while Pacific seemed to take their foot off the pedal. A five-minute spell of dominance by the debutants culminated in Sean Rea’s 2–1 go-ahead goal, and the celebration showed that the visitors were a lot more fired up than the hosts.
Pacific netted a second equalizer in the 69th, but the Quebec side had come to Vancouver Island to make a statement. Strong performances by the home team’s Josh Heard, Wero Díaz, Marcos Bustos, Diego Konincks, and Ronan Kratt (who laced a shot off post in the 76th) were not enough to earn a draw against the unrelenting newcomers.
Supra willed in the game-winner in the seventh minute of added time. They simply wanted it more, and they celebrated in the visitors’ changeroom as though they had won the North Star Cup.
Here are three takeaways.
- Great Goalkeeping by Milli
Of all the inspired performances by Supra, the goalkeeping of Joakim Milli was the most crucial to their stealing a win at Starlight.
When Josh Heard sent a perfect cross to the head of Wero Díaz in the 39th minute, Milli quickly reacted to the header and clawed out a ball that seemed destined to cross the goal line. It came so close to fully crossing the line, in fact, that the referee had to review the play using Football Video Support (FVS).
Another brilliant cross by Heard found the head of Ronan Kratt in the 79th, but Milli dived across goal to make one of his seven saves on the day and, once again, make Pacific’s players raise their hands to their heads in disbelief.
- Heard Back and Better Than Before
One piece of Pacific’s hangover from their disastrous 2025 season was the one-match suspension Heard served in this year’s opener against Cavalry on April 5.
The 31-year-old captain had received a red card in the match against Valour FC that concluded the 2025 campaign. He entered that match as a second-half sub and, in his ten-minute stint on the field, saw a yellow card for a nastily late tackle and a second yellow for instigating a shoving match. The frustrated captain stomped off his home pitch in the rain as Valour wrapped up a 4–1 thrashing — a fitting image of Pacific’s season.
At times, Heard looked a bit sluggish in 2025, and he was a step quicker against Supra on Saturday. Playing on the right wing, he combined well with Mexican striker Wero Díaz, and a few Heard–Díaz link-ups nearly produced goals.
In the 69th minute, Heard found the back of the net by deftly side-footing in a cross from Christian Greco-Taylor. In just one match, he equalled his 2025 goal total: one. He appeared to be a new man, and as the team’s captain and emotional leader, his revival is key to Pacific picking themselves up and dusting themselves off in 2026.
- New Rules Resulted in Two “Power-Play” Goals
The Swiss are renowned for their punctuality, and Swiss-born referee Alain Ruch showed on Saturday that he is not about to gently ease the players into the new rules made to curtail time-wasting. The slightest dallying over throw-ins or goal kicks resulted in Ruch giving a brief chirp of the whistle and holding up his hand to signal a five-second countdown. Players consistently restarted play on time; otherwise, possession would have gone to the other team.
Time-wasting is a global problem in soccer. How many times have we seen players, if their team has the second-half lead, dawdle off the field when getting subbed off? Supra’s Clément Bayiha, perhaps from force of habit, did exactly that in the 68th minute. Under the new rules, Bayiha had only ten seconds to exit the field from the moment the fourth official raised the board showing his number.
As punishment, Bayiha’s substitute, Riad Bey, had to stay off the field for at least one minute and then enter at the next stoppage in play. Pacific were smart to hold on to possession carefully with the man advantage, not giving Bey the desired stoppage, and nearly two minutes after Bayiha had left the field, Heard bagged the 2–2 goal.
In principle, FVS challenges are permitted for possible red-card offences, not for yellows. Nevertheless, referees can give yellow cards retroactively after FVS checks, and Nick Razzaghi used FVS twice on Saturday to give opposing players yellow cards.
The Supra coach still had both of his challenge cards early in the second half and opted to use one to get Matthew Baldisimo booked. The red-card check on Baldisimo predictably resulted in a yellow card, limiting the central midfielder’s leeway to play aggressively throughout the remainder of the match.
The second red-card check initiated by Razzaghi came in the 93rd minute. Pacific’s Joshua Belluz was already on a yellow card and, after review, received a second. Consequently, Supra scored the 97th-minute winner, a goal by 21-year-old Alexandre Marcoux, while playing 11 v. 10.
If FVS red-card checks that are really aimed at yellow cards result in too many stoppages this year, the CPL might need to consider eliminating referees’ ability to give yellows in such situations or reducing coaches’ challenge cards from two to one.
What’s Next?
Pacific will look to end their three-game losing streak and twelve-game winless streak (dating back to last season) after travelling to Nova Scotia on the longest domestic trip in world soccer. At Wanderers Grounds in Halifax, they will face the team led by former Vancouver Whitecaps manager Vanni Sartini.
(Images: CPL)