‘A surreal feeling’: Semifinal super-sub Verhoven reflects on growth at Atlético Ottawa
Zach Verhoven wasn’t sure if he was going to get on the pitch.
In the first leg of Atlético Ottawa’s CPL semifinal at Starlight Stadium earlier this month, the 24-year-old was on the bench when his side scored to take a 1-0 lead over Pacific FC in the 79th minute. Just seconds later, head coach Carlos González was calling him over to enter the game.
Verhoven’s entry in place of Carl Haworth was a mild surprise to some — conventional thinking would suggest González might turn to a more defence-minded player for the last 10 minutes to ensure Ottawa left this away leg with a lead. The Atleti gaffer, however, saw a chance to press further on the gas pedal, so he turned to the fleet-footed, direct winger Verhoven.
“Honestly when we scored that first one I was expecting to see the game out,” Verhoven told CanPL.ca. “I knew if I was to get the call it was to be defensively solid.”
For most of his shift, that was indeed the mission: to cling to the advantage and not let Pacific equalize. At last, though — three and a half minutes past the 90, and ten and a half after Verhoven entered the match — Abdou Sissoko won the ball in midfield and sent it left to Malcolm Shaw.
Shaw drove into the attacking half with the ball, cutting centrally while Ballou Tabla made a run across him and to the left. Shaw fed Tabla, who sent it back across the top of the 18-yard box to Zakaria Bahous, who took a touch and fed it again to the right, to a player the broadcast camera couldn’t even see yet.
Consider the screenshot below of when Shaw enters the attacking third with Tabla. Verhoven, circled on the right, has barely crossed the halfway line at this point; he’s far from the mind of any Pacific player tracking back to defend.
Seven seconds later, Bahous is passing to Verhoven inside the penalty area. Eight seconds later, the ball’s in the back of the net.
Verhoven, totally unmarked, didn’t need to take a touch. He arrived in the box and smashed it, getting a tricky deflection off Nathan Mavila to freeze Callum Irving.
Two-nil for Atlético Ottawa.
“I saw the play start coming up the left side and saw Pacific shift over, I thought I could gamble,” Verhoven recalled. “We switched the ball around and I was there; I didn’t second-guess it and just hit it first time. It was an amazing feeling.”
It's two for @atletiOttawa!
— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) October 16, 2022
Former Pacific player Zach Verhoven doubles the lead with a late strike 🎯#CanPL | 📺 @onesoccerpic.twitter.com/RHhKeceYuC
Upon scoring, Verhoven made immediately for section 103 at Starlight Stadium. A native of Burnaby, B.C., Verhoven had a full supporters’ section of friends and family in attendance for Leg 1. Despite playing two seasons for Pacific FC, Verhoven might not have had a more incredible moment in Langford than this.
He’d begun the day not even sure if he would get on the pitch. He ended it having scored the biggest goal of his career.
“Being from Vancouver, my whole family, best friend, brother, sister, grandma, grandpa all came out,” Verhoven said. “It meant a lot to me; going through my first major injury, being out for over two months, it was just a surreal feeling to come back and help the team in a very important game.”
The following week, Verhoven was part of the heroics again. With Ottawa just one goal up on Pacific at home in Leg 2, he came off the bench again and, this time, his tenacious work out on the left won the ball and launched a transition. He fed it to Shaw out on the right wing and, well, Shaw deposited a screamer to put Atleti in the CPL Final.
It's two for @atletiOttawa!
— Canadian Premier League (@CPLsoccer) October 16, 2022
Former Pacific player Zach Verhoven doubles the lead with a late strike 🎯#CanPL | 📺 @onesoccerpic.twitter.com/RHhKeceYuC
As Verhoven hinted, this has been a challenging season for him. Until 2022, he’d never had a major injury in his entire career; in 2021, Verhoven appeared in all but three of Ottawa’s matches, starting 16 of them. This year, he was limited to just 12 appearances, only three of them starts.
The trouble began for him in June. Atleti opened the month with two wins — 1-0 at Valour, and 2-1 at home to Pacific — within a week. In both games, Verhoven came off the bench late in the contest, and both times he was the hero with a late goal to win it for Ottawa.
Just as Verhoven looked like he’d found his stride, though, in that game against Pacific — not long after he’d scored the winner — a suffered a groin tear that would keep him off the pitch for three weeks.
He returned to the squad in early July, first making his return in a 1-0 away win over Forge. The next match, at home against Cavalry, Verhoven again came off the bench with the score level, and in the 85th minute fans in TD Place thought he might have won it for them again.
Instead, he collided hard with the goalpost, just missing the ball and smashing his right knee into the iron. Verhoven collapsed in agony, but after some attention from the trainer he attempted to return to the game — only to go down again moments later.
This time, the injury was more serious: A partial ligament tear at the back of his knee put him on the sidelines for two full months.
“For me, it was always putting my happiness on football; once it was taken away from me I had to take a step back,” Verhoven said. “Now that I am back, I’m very happy to be back; when I wasn’t in the team I was finding ways to be happy, being there for my teammates, and now since I’m back I’m just enjoying my football. When coach calls, I’m ready to go on.”
That call has certainly come since Verhoven’s return. Of course, most players will admit they’d rather be starting games than entering as a substitute, but to his immense credit, Verhoven has an incredible knack for making his presence known in just 10 to 15 minutes of work.
“Zach is a special player,” his coach, González, said of him after Leg 2. “He’s the star in certain moments. He’s a player that can move the game, that can create different things in a moment that the game is a little bit balanced. He’s doing a great job from the bench, he’s impacting the game every time he plays.”
Much has been asked of Verhoven in this, just his fourth professional season. For most of his career, he’s been almost exclusively a wide right winger, hugging the touchline and looking to beat defenders with his close control and quickness. Last year, his defensive responsibilities grew with a handful of matches played at right-back, but this season under González he’s been put on the pitch in all sorts of positions, whether in the middle or on either flank.
In these four professional seasons, Verhoven has played under four different head coaches: Michael Silberbauer and Pa-Modou Kah at Pacific, followed by Mista and now González in Ottawa. Each of them, he says, has taught him something different, moulding him into the more well-rounded, mature professional he is today.
“I’ve added so many parts to my game, and I look at it as an overall player, how I’ve grown,” Verhoven said.
His current boss, González, agrees:
“I think he’s showing a really good level, and he’s growing as a player,” he said. “He’s becoming a very mature player; he’s starting to control his emotions. Zach is a very important player for us.”
Having already played the role of super-sub twice in these playoffs, Verhoven will undoubtedly have a part to play on Sunday in the CPL Final. It’s likely he comes off the bench again, but by the time all is said and done, he’ll have had his say.
