There is no denying that Ottawa Fury FC was goal-starved during the NASL Spring Season. The club found the back of the opposition net just five times in its ten league matches, and managed just one goal in its final six matches. The good news for Ottawa is that its defence has been top-notch, not conceding a goal in the final six matches. The combination of excellent defence and an impotent attack resulted in Fury FC’s final five matches seeing a grand total of one goal, with the club drawing 0-0 four times and defeating Indy 1-nil.
Thus, with the idea of improving the offence in mind, the club announced the signing of Aly Alberto Hassan on what is surely a free transfer from the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The 26 year-old joins Ottawa after spending the last four seasons in Fort Lauderdale, the final three of which saw him reduced to a bench role after initially impressing in his 2012 rookie campaign.
At 6’2, Hassan is an aerial threat – something the club already supposedly has in Tom Heinemann – and little more. He moves reasonably well for a big man, but doesn’t present an attacking option that the club doesn’t already have.
Hassan is an interesting case study. The Florida-native was electric in his 2012 pro debut, scoring six goals in 21 starts, but his career has fizzled since. An early-2013 loan move to Bolivian side Aurora saw him bear no fruit in seven league appearances, and his stateside return saw him play just 95 minutes in all of 2013. Hassan rebounded somewhat in 2014, scoring three times in 19 appearances, but only managed five starts.
When you consider everything, this signing can only add up to a depth addition for Marc Dos Santos’s side. The tall, lanky frontman made just one start during Ft. Lauderdale’s spring campaign, and hasn’t cracked the thousand-minute mark in a season since 2012.
With that being said, perhaps a change of scenery will help Hassan rediscover his 2012 form. By all accounts, he is a positive, religious man who will fit in well with Dos Santos’s locker room.
Judging from social media reaction, the addition of Hassan has been greeted as a step in the right direction by the fan base, but hardly enough of a splash. Tom Heinemann likely remains the first-choice striker for Ottawa, and that, in the minds of some, simply isn’t good enough.
The move also signifies manager Marc Dos Santos’s acceptance that his side needs to get better up front. From an off-pitch standpoint, I wonder how effective consecutive nil-nil draws at home will help grow the Fury and soccer brands in the nation’s capital. Maybe, just maybe, crowds would be electrified and expand in number if the club was losing 3-2 thrillers instead of playing to (especially towards the end of the spring campaign) dull nil-nil draws.
While points are nice, and the league table is very tight at this phase of the season, Ottawa is still in ninth place in the 11-team circuit. If you make a club commitment to defensive integrity, and that change bears fruit, then congratulations. But the 2015 Fury sit on ten points from 11 matches, at the same point of the season that the 2014 Fury sat on nine points from 10 matches, and one could make a valid argument that the 2014 Fury side was involved in more exciting matches.
In a market where the team is still considered very niche, and in an effort to draw more fans and play exciting football, the club should make an earnest effort to bring in a finisher (or two). Because quite frankly, the team will not expand beyond the lower bowl of the south side stands at TD Place Stadium unless it can separate itself from the North American stereotypes on soccer. Namely, the ideas that teams play for nil-nil draws and the beautiful game is boring because, like, nobody ever scores, bro.
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