Keith Mason: “In 2025, we can’t accept anything less than promotion“

With the 2024 season now in the rearview mirror, we sat down with Guelph United general manager Keith Mason, for an in-depth interview.

We discussed everything, from the men’s team’s relegation to the second-tier L1O Championship, to what needs to change this off-season in order to promote right back.

We talked players, and got the scoop on who might be the next ones to follow in Camilo Vasconcelos’ footsteps and turn pro.

And we looked into the women’s highest-ever finish, and whether they can challenge for the title next season.

- What are your thoughts on the 2024 season, which unfortunately ended with our men’s team relegating to the Championship division?
- For everyone involved at the club, it was an extremely disappointing season. It didn't meet our expectations. Some games we gave up last minute goals and dropped silly points, there were a lot of games when we got what we deserved, and the inconsistency was there for all to see. It's something we have to solve. It seemed to me from day one, on the men’s side, we just never got the camaraderie, the team spirit, the connection you need within a team to be successful. Within the first few weeks of the season, we had two or three players who we'd signed for the first time that asked to be released. And from that moment on, it was a continuous thing all season long. We signed a record number of 24 players for our first team in 2024. And by the end, when the playoffs came, we had nine of them left. That's not good enough. It's not good enough in our recruitment department, it's not good enough in our retention of players. It's hard to get the consistency and the team spirit and camaraderie you need when players are constantly changing and coming and going. I think that played a big part of where we ended up. At the end of the day, the league table doesn't lie, and we clearly deserved to be where we were. There was quite a gap between the next team above us at the end of the table. So we can't say after a long season that we didn't deserve it because we did.

- Even so, there was a penalty shootout loss in the final game that could have saved us.

- Yeah, the final game - first off, we struggled a bit with their high press and their tempo was very high. It took us 25 to 30 minutes to settle into the game. Once we did, we were the better team. But unfortunately, during that time, we gave a silly goal away, which again was consistent with all the season, a straightforward long ball that we didn't deal with well and it was in the back of the net before we could react. The playoff game mimicked the season in many ways. Giving away silly goals, slow starts, and then give everything to try and get back into it. But I can honestly say there were a lot of young and reserve players in that game, and they did awesome. The second half we dominated the game, the guys played really, really well and on another day we should have won it. But we didn't get relegated because of the playoff game. We got relegated because the season wasn't good enough from day one. We need to address that and improve in 2025.

- Do you have any idea how this will be addressed? Was this a coaching issue or a recruitment issue? What will be done this winter?
- At this time we're going through the usual end of season wrap up process of evaluations on all our teams, not just the men's team, but all our teams. There's a board meeting next week where we will discuss specifically the men's and women's first teams. After that, you know, decisions will be made, but there's nothing made at this particular time.

- What do you think will need to change in the recruiting process for next year so that we don't have the roster turnover that we had this year?
- How we recruit is the number one. In sport in general, whether you're a Premier League team, Championship team in the UK, as well as university, and as well as League 1 Ontario, you're only as good as the players you recruit. We obviously got the recruitment wrong because we see where we ended up. So first of all, we need to look at that. We need to address that. I think part of the issue we had last year is we went very young. A lot of the players were at university, which is okay, but when the universities are out East or down in the States, that means you lose your players before the end of the season. And when the nitty gritty of the season starts, you're losing most of your players. So we need to look at that policy and make sure we recruit a few more senior players, such as Jared Agyemang. We also lost some key players in Amardo Oakley, in Dion Stergiotis. There's a number of players that have been with us for many years who either went on to higher levels or retired, and we missed their experience, their leadership in the team room, the standards they set for the younger players. I think it's okay building young teams, I'm all for that, but we need a few more older heads who can also steady the ship in a crisis. We have to look at everything, and where we recruit from is another area. We don't need to recruit from teams so far away in Canada, when there's so much talent locally. Why do we need so many players from Nova Scotia, when Ontario is just full of great players. So we need to look at where we recruit from and make sure those players are committed to Guelph United till the end of the season. We don't need players committed for three months. We need them committed for a full season.

- We've had some players that have been with us for many years, like Sears, Yates, Agyemang. Are there signs that they will return next year?

- We're now in the process of evaluating all our players from last year. We already have our retention list of who we want to keep and who we don’t want to keep. Some of those players that are key for the program moving forward are definitely the local talents like Gray Yates (pictured left), who not only is a Guelph native, he's a leader, he's one of the best players in the league. So yes, Gray will be back in 2025. But for the whole list, we're in that process now of going through that with the players who we're inviting back and who we're not. Our goal is to keep the 8 to 10 players that we consider the core of this team, players that stuck with us throughout the season, and then add more quality around that with new players coming in, and some of the young ones we have in our reserves.

- Yes, our reserve team did actually really well, finishing in third place in League2 Ontario. Do you think there's a large part of that team that can make the jump to the senior level?
- We definitely have two or three players that are ready to go now. They are very, very good, they've gained a lot of experience this year by being called up a lot. But we have an abundance of talent that are not quite ready to be full-time at the first team yet, but will definitely play a huge supporting role in 2025. My philosophy is simple. Why do you need to recruit 24 players, and you feel the need to play players 20 to 24 when opportunities open up, even though they're not as good as our reserve players? We shouldn't sign players like that. We should be saying, okay, let's sign 18 quality players, and the rest we call up from the reserve teams. That's what we should be doing, and that's one of the changes we can make in recruitment that will solve some of the problems we had.

- Do you think anyone from the first team has the chance to turn pro this winter like Camilo Vasconcelos did last year, when he signed with the Halifax Wanderers in the CPL?

- The closest ones on the radar right now would be Jacob Cabral - we've already had interest on him from Halifax Wanderers and some other clubs in the CPL that have been looking at him over the past six months - and our goalie, Carter Robart. They are the two that have got the most likely opportunity at this particular point of making that step up. Carter's currently recovering from an injury, he had to have shoulder surgery at the end of August so he's out for a few months, but he should be good for next season. That was a big loss for us, as he's one of the best goalies in the league, and we didn't have him much this year because of his injury, he was in and out all year. But they're the two that have the most interest around them right now.

- Let's switch to the happier side of our club in 2024. Our women's team did really well this year, finishing sixth in the Premier Division, our highest ever ranking. What are the hopes for next year? Do you think we can go even further and challenge for the title?
- Yes. That's the next step on the ladder. I don't think we're far off. If you watched those ladies play at the end of the season, they were playing really, really well. The fans loved it, the entertainment value was high, we were scoring goals. That team is close to being a team that can start challenging. So, that's our next goal, is to take it from solidifying a Premier League spot to now challenging in the Premier League. And, you know, it might take a couple more years, but our goal for next year is to make another step towards that, and I think we can do it. If we can keep the base of who we had, and then build on them with a few new additions of real quality, then we've got a chance to be challenging.

- Is Randy Ribeiro returning as head coach?
- Again, on the women's side, just like the men’s, we are just now going through that process. But I can tell you, Randy wants to return. The club and the board were very happy with what Randy did, and we are looking for some consistency in our women's programme, after they've had four different coaches in four years. So, you know, you can read between the lines about how I expect that process to go.

- Same question as for the men, especially now with the Canadian women's professional league that starts next year: do you think there are any players from our team that can make the jump to the pros?

- There are a couple that we believe are being looked at. Caitlin Crichton is one of them, that we feel might have a good chance. She's probably one of the top players in that area. Angelika Mihalopulos (pictured right) is an awesome player as well.

- Yes, and she did play pro in Greece in the past.
- Yeah, she was playing pro in Greece. But she's in the later stages of her career, so whether that's something she would want, who knows, but she certainly has talent. I think there's three or four of our women that potentially, if they stick with us and keep working with us, I think could get there. Olivia Rizakos had a fantastic season, Olivia Brown is very, very strong up front for us. We've got so much quality on that team, and I think a lot of the players from this new professional league will be built around League 1 organizations, so there is a good chance we may lose three or four of our players to that.

- Switching back to the men - how optimistic are you that they can get back to Premier division after just one year?
- I think we're very optimistic. We understand where some of the problems were, as a club, we will work hard to fix those, and I'm confident we can retain the players that we want to retain. And if we do that, I still believe this team's good enough to play in the Premier division as we were. So, if we can make some changes and just add a couple of the right players to the squad, I think we've got an excellent chance of bouncing straight back. And that has to be our goal. We can't accept anything less, other than let's win this league and get back into the Premier division.

- Okay, and to wrap this up, is there anything else you want to say to our fans?
- The only other thing I'd say is, overall, as disappointing as the relegation was, from a club perspective we continue to keep growing. Our fans were excellent. At the end of the season, some of the turnouts were fantastic. Our teams continue to build. We want to add a women’s U20 team this year, so that will give us three men’s and three women’s teams, and possibly, if we get enough players, we may add another men’s U20 team. So we continue to grow as a club. All things off the field look great and continue to get better.