A goal in the ninth minute by Hamilton Serbians’ forward Igor Prostran was enough to give his team a 1-0 victory over current Canadian amateur champions GS United of Toronto in the Preliminary Round of the CSL’s Open Canada Cup played at Brian Timmis Stadium in Hamilton Sunday night.

Prostran’s header came off the post to just enter the net out of the reach of GS United goalkeeper George Knezevic and in a tough exciting encounter that followed, the Scarborough-based team was unable to mount a strong enough challenge to tie the game.

The current Canadian Challenge Cup holders pressed hard following the ejection of Hamilton’s Mirko Dakovic late in the game, but the Serbians held the 1-0 lead to the final whistle.

In one other Open Canada Cup game scheduled this weekend, Ottawa St. Anthony Italia advanced to Round Two after a request by opposing Montreal Panellinios to postpone the game scheduled for the University of Ottawa Saturday night was turned down by the Canadian Soccer League. The game was forfeited and awarded to Ottawa St. Anthony Italia by a 2-0 score.
Hamilton Serbians and Ottawa St. Anthony Italia now move to the Second Round of the Open Canada Cup to be played on Canada Day weekend.

In an exhibition game played at Brockton Stadium in Toronto on Sunday night, SC Angrense of Portugal edged Toronto Supra Portuguese of the CSL’s International Division by a 2-1 score.  Marcia Fagundes and Fernando Fernando Silveira scored for the visitors, while Mike De Luca struck Supra’s lone goal.
 

This was the second of a two-game visit by Angrense following a game at the Cove Road ground in London Friday when London City of the CSL’s National Division bounced back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the Portuguese visitors, 2-2.

In that game, Gilberto at 11 minutes and Tiago three minutes later, put Angrense 2-0 up, but London’s Michel Daoust made it 2-1 at the interval with 16 year old Bruno Moya, who has shown good promise in the Ottawa leagues to earn an early move to professional soccer, grabbed the tying goal at the 89th minute mark.
 

There was one CSL game on Saturday night when Windsor Border Stars and London City kicked off their Canadian Soccer League season with a hard played scoreless tie before 1,427 fans at Windsor Stadium, and that was the second game of the CSL season following the 3-2 victory by Serbian White Eagles over Italia Shooters in the league opener played Friday.

The game at Windsor Stadium started  slowly in the opening 20 minutes, but the pace picked up considerably as the game progressed with Border Stars developing a series of first half attacks in an attempt to break through the London defence. Windsor forward Aaron Byrd proved to be a constant threat for the home side.

Windsor’s David Dwaihy had the best opportunity to break the deadlock when he drove a volley over the London crossbar late in the second half and the game ended 0-0.
 

Serbian White Eagles, bolstered by six import players from Europe, held on to a 3-0 half time lead to defeat Italia Shooters 3-2  in the Canadian Soccer League opener played at Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke on Friday night.
The vastly more experienced Serbian team cut through an Italia defense time and again in the first half and goals by veteran Romanian professional Gabriel Pop at 13 minutes, the much younger attacking midfielder Alex Braletic at 22 minutes and recent import forward Sasa Viciknez at 29 minutes, set up the White Eagles for what appeared to be a certain home opener victory.
But Italia made a wholesale three-player change coming into the second half and a new approach by coach Carmine Isacco turned the game around resulting in goals by forward Joey Todaro at 54 minutes and midfielder Stalin Cardenas at the 74th minute mark.

Both sides had close calls late in the game but White Eagles, coached by former Yugoslavian great Dragoslav Sekularac and Stevan Mojsilovic from Red Star Belgrade, had the edge to come through with the 3-2 result. The team was visited last week by Serbia and Montenegro World Cup coach Ilija Petkovic who left his national team duties to fly  to Toronto for 24 hours to meet the players.
There will be four CSL league games next Sunday, May 28:
 

Victoria Park 6:00pm Brampton Stallions vs.Oakville Blue Devils                
 

Centennial Stadium 7:00pm Caribbean Selects vs NorthYorkAstros

TheSoccer Centre 7:00pm Italia Shooters vs  Serbian White Eagles
 

Brockton Stadium 7:00pm Toronto Supra Portuguese vs London City