Twardek notches winning goal in debut game for hometown team

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After plying his trade in Europe for the past decade, Kris Twardek wildly enjoyed his homecoming Saturday at TD Place.

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He also predicted its highlight moment.

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“It was pretty awesome,” the 27-year old defender said of scoring the winning goal in the 79th minute of Atletico Ottawa’s 2-1 season-opening victory over York United — then including in his celebration a perfectly executed knee slide on the slippery turf in front of his closest supporters. “Honestly, I had a vision the day before that something like that could happen, just because all my friends and family were right in that section. Probably about 100 of them. And as soon as I scored, I just went blind and ran right towards them.

“It was pretty special.”

With 4,049 fun-loving customers who paid for tickets but zero attention to the rain, wind and cold, Atletico Ottawa overcame a sluggish start and a 1-0 deficit to pick up just its second-ever victory over York in 15 tries, a club against which it has nine draws and had never before defeated at TD Place.

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It also jumped out of the gate with a much more positive start than in 2023, when Ottawa didn’t taste victory until its fifth match and didn’t get its fourth win until match No. 13.

Last year, Ottawa finished a disappointing sixth in the Canadian Premier League because it was “chasing the season” in the second half.

A successful 2024 debut puts wind in Atletico’s sails.

“It gives you air,” said coach Carlos Gonzalez. “Air to breathe. This is important, to start winning, to be calm, to know and acknowledge that we’ve done nothing, that we’re still building a team and that we still have to work on so many things. At the same time, it’s good to see that in a tough game like the game we had today, we were able to bounce it back and grab the three points at home.

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“I’m very happy for that.”

Ottawa had to play catchup after York star Austin Ricci made amends for missing a wide open net midway through the first half by drilling a low shot past keeper Rayane Yesli in the 48th minute.

“We had them pinned the whole first half … arguably we could have been up 3-0, even could have been up five at the beginning of the second half,” said Ricci. “So it sucks to have the game swing the way it did. That’s part of it though, when you don’t finish your chances you get punished.”

Ricci was also a central figure in the tying goal 16 minutes later.

Standing on the goal line, he stopped a shot by Ottawa’s Aboubacar Sissoko, but the ball popped up to Manny Aparicio, who scored with a header.

“I think it was just a little bit unlucky,” said Ricci. “I tried to clear the first cross, the guy comes again. I blocked the second one, and it somehow bounces right to the guy’s head on the corner of the box. I don’t know how many deflections you’re going to get but that don’t go your way, but it’s unfortunate.

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“Then again, another stupid mistake coming out of the back on the second goal, and all of a sudden you’re down 2-1 from comfortable.”

Deserving much of the credit on that winner — and the Player of the Match nod he received — was Aparicio, who stripped the ball off a York player, took it to the side of the net near the line, and sent a perfect cross to Twardek, who finished with a scorer’s touch before seeming to sacrifice a pound of flesh with his celly.

“The knees are alright but I have a bit of a charley horse so that whole leg is in a bit of a state at the moment,” the Ottawa South United product said with a chuckle before explaining his mindset in converting the golden opportunity presented him by Aparicio on a slick afternoon. “You just want to make good clean contact with the ball,” said Twardek, also known as “the Kinburn Kid” as an homage to his birthplace. “The weight of the ball was was really lovely, and it kind of bent in towards the instep, so you’ve got to kind of make clean contact and try to stay as calm in the situation as possible.

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“We kind of rode our luck in the first half at times, and the wind definitely played a factor. We were optimistic coming out in the second half, ironically, because we ended up conceding early, but I think there was a sense in that second half that we could kind of get some momentum, and we could score, and then when we equalized it, I felt that we were going to win the game.”

Along with the winning goal in his debut for Atletico Ottawa, Twardek also was the game leader in entries into the final third (13), duels won (six) and aerial duels won (two).

But what clearly gave him the most joy was sharing his big day on the pitch with all his loved ones.

“You know, usually I would have probably one, my wife, or maybe a couple friends that came over to visit (Europe) seeing a match,” said Twardek. “But to have 100 people there, you can’t even put into words how special that is.”

Atletico Ottawa’s next game is Saturday, with Calgary FC providing the opposition in a 2 p.m. start at TD Place.

dbrennan@postmedia.com

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