Calgary Foothills FC narrowly misses clinching championship

Calgary's Foothills FC exceeded everyone's expectations this year, fighting its way into the Premier Development League finals, butnarrowly losingthe league championship.

• Calgary soccer underdogs defy odds, score their way to semifinals

Foothills fell to the Michigan Bucks, 3-2.

"We've defied all odds," said head coach TommyWheeldon Jr. after the game on Saturday.

"When we've been given a four per cent chance of winning our own conference, we did that. We went into the western conference finals as the third seed, we won that. We come into this as the fourth seed, we got to the semi-finals and won that. We got to the final and we were 15 minutes away from the championship."

Professional development

The PDL is the third tier of the soccer hierarchy in North America, and is a combination of professional and amateur teams.

Calgary Foothills is a larger organization andacts as a sort of soccer incubator in Calgary, with youth teams all the way up to the under-23 PDL team, now in its second year.

Wheeldon said this championship run fits perfectly within the goals of the overall organization.

"That was our objective from the get-go was to raise the profile, to get more fans, to get more kids to aspire to play at a higher level," he said.

"I've taken a bunch of local lads, mostly from our club, and some CIS (Canadian Interuniversity Sport)players and we've competed against the best NCAA players across this country, North America."

This is the third championship win in 10 years for the Michigan Bucks, based out of Pontiac.