Success doesn’t come easily in sports; teams and athletes almost always face challenges on their path to the top of their respective disciplines.

To overcome those setbacks and find ways to win, a team must have courage, comradery and composure, and this year’s MRU Cougars men’s soccer team embodied those principles perfectly.

Coming into the 2024 season without their lead goalie—Aidan Dumoulin—who was sidelined all year due to a wrist injury, as well as some of their greatest players from their 2023 Canada West gold medal-winning roster, the Cougars knew that they were in for an uphill battle. To top it off, Stadium Field, the Cougars’ usual stomping ground, was under maintenance all year, forcing them to play on the smaller, less refined practice field.

Despite all the factors working against them, MRU prospered, posting a record of seven wins, two losses and five draws in the regular season, qualifying them for the 2024 Canada West playoffs once again. According to forward Joshua Flaksman, head coach Ryan Gyaki’s motivational coaching was key in keeping the team focused on the job at hand.

“Before every game, [Gyaki] always tells us, ‘don’t necessarily do it for yourself, but do it for your brothers,’” Flaksman said.

“‘Do it for your family, do it for your teammates, [do it] for your seniors.’ And that’s a big motivating factor to get us all hyped up and wanting to perform.”

After beating the University of Victoria Vikes 2-1 in the quarterfinals, they moved on to face the University of Alberta Golden Bears, who were hosting the divisional stage of the tournament. Eighty-nine minutes into the game, both teams remained scoreless, but then Jonathan “JJ” Walter buried the one and only goal of the game in the final minute of play and gave them a 1-0 win.

That sent the Cougars to the Canada West Finals and qualified them for the U SPORTS National Tournament in back-to-back years. The only other team to do that in the last decade is the University of British Columbia (UBC) Thunderbirds, who the Cougars faced in Vancouver in the Canada West finals.

Unfortunately, the Cougars took a heartbreaking 1-0 loss, earning a Canada West silver medal. However, they remained excited as they prepared to travel to Oshawa, Ont., to compete at the national level. Slated to play the Université de Montréal Carabins in the quarter-final round, MRU conceded a 1-0 loss in an intense 90-minute match. That put them out of contention for a U SPORTS medal, but the team stayed keyed in and prepared to battle in the consolation match against the St. Francis Xavier X-Men.

After conceding the first two goals of the game, MRU refused to go home without scoring one of their own as Flaksman turned a perfectly timed feed from Skyler Rogers into an unstoppable shot. The boys left everything on the field in the final 30 minutes of the match but ended their season with a 2-1 loss in Oshawa, where the UBC Thunderbirds eventually secured the U SPORTS National Championship.

Despite the team’s disappointment, though, Gyaki truly believed that this year was an overall success and rebelled against the sensationalist tendency to label a non-championship season as a failure.

“It’s good to be disappointed with not winning and wanting to strive more,” Gyaki said.

“But I also think it’s very important to have the right mindset of being still proud of what you’ve achieved. And I find too often in sports that is that if you don’t win gold, everything is a failure. And that’s not true at all.”

Instead, Gyaki was proud of the way his boys valued their brotherhood, becoming men over the course of their arduous season and showing gratitude for the opportunities in front of them.

“The biggest part for me in those moments is to hear the care they have for each other as people and the support they give each other as people, not just as athletes,” Gyaki said. “We talked a lot about being thankful for the opportunity to compete and to be a group of healthy young men that do something we love… It’s important to value this time, it’s not a given. Not everyone gets to do what we do. So it’s very special.”

With six players on the roster graduating after this season, the Cougars will have a roster full of fresh faces next year. However, with Flaksman on the field and Gyaki at the helm, MRU fans will have more than a few reasons to show up and cheer on their men again in 2025.