UFV — Trinity;. Cascades — Spartans. That’s the matchup that gets circled on the calendar. On Friday, Oct. 10 at Rotary Stadium, another chapter of the book was written.
It was 2-0 Trinity early; the Spartans capitalized on two first half strikes from Charles Nana. UFV wouldn’t break through until the 64th minute, when second-year Aidan Fitzgerald put one past Yeshua Silwamba for his first career U SPORTS goal. Suddenly, the Cascades were running downhill.
Five and a half minutes of play in the Trinity end later, captain Mateo Brazinha keyed the Cascades’ comeback, scoring the tying marker. It was a 2-2 game with approximately 20 minutes until the final buzzer; all the makings of an instant classic between two geographical foes. The match wouldn’t stay on tilt, however.
TWU’s Francis Powell scored the go-ahead goal against the flow of play in the 75th minute. Despite UFV’s vigorous pressure to tie the match for a second time, it was to no avail. Powell’s tally ultimately stood as the decisive game-winning goal in a 3-2 decision for the Spartans.
Coach Tom Lowndes was incensed postgame — both with the referee’s inability to keep a hold on what was the most physical game at Rotary this season — and probably his team’s inability to either hold the game at 2-2, or outright take it for themselves. The result put the Cascades’ record on the year at 6-3-3 after 12 games played.
The Cascades quietly filed into their dressing room, and for the next 10 minutes or so they just sat. No talking. Just soaking in the game’s result. Sitting in that feeling.
Despite 6-3-3 being good enough for a playoff spot, it ensured that with three games remaining on the schedule,the Cascades wouldn’t get to 10 wins on the campaign. A goal set by the team prior to the regular season. Just last season, this version of UFV might have been content with simply getting into the dance, but not this team.
Choruses of “All I do is win” bellowing out of the TWU locker room leaked through the walls until Brazinha broke the silence.
“That should fucking hurt,” he said to his teammates.
It wasn’t necessarily the kindest thing to say at the time. There was no sugar-coating. But it’s something that needed to be said, not because everyone didn’t already know it, but because it still needed to be heard.
“There’s times where I’m probably not the nicest guy, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the most important thing as captain to be the nicest guy.”
The meeting
One of Brazinha’s first acts after being named UFV’s captain for the 2025-26 campaign was to hold a player’s only meeting. The purpose? To set the record straight. After a semi-finals appearance last year, this season was going to come with outside expectations. None were bigger to Brazinha though than the ones he had for himself and for the team, and he wanted that to be on the record before the team’s first game. He asked each individual what they wanted from the season, coming to the consensus that the team’s primary goal this season would be to hit double digit wins.
“That’s such an important part of how we succeed, is how we make our goals,” explained Brazinha.
Losing to Trinity brought the season-long pursuit to an end. As UFV’s leader though, it was important for the captain to mention that the team didn’t reach the goal they had set out for. Brazinha isn’t a boisterous presence on the field. His voice isn’t the loudest or the most frequent one heard, and that captures his teammate’s attention all the more when he decides to send a message the way he did in the locker room that night.
The last goal remaining
Brazinha found himself with a lot of space behind the defence last season. That’s been taken away. The reigning Canada West Player of the Year has had a target on his back all season, and the Cascades as a whole aren’t taking anyone by surprise anymore. While the Cascades might embrace the scrappy, gritty, underdog mentality, they’re a true contender now. They get any given team’s best efforts every week. Brazinha sees it as a compliment to his team’s abilities.
With a stack of individual accomplishments, including a front-running case to be 2025 U SPORTS Player of the Year, Brazinha has a singular focus as UFV prepares for the Calgary Dinos in a quarter-final rematch from last year’s playoffs.
“I am dying for this team to get somewhere that it’s never been before, dying for it … Our goal now is to make it past not one game of playoffs, but make it past a second, and then get into Nationals.”
