FAR and Away
The soccer journey for Maslah Farah of the Langara Falcons has been an incredible one
The defending champion Langara Falcons season opened with a bang on Saturday afternoon as they clobbered the Capilano Blues 5-0 in their official home opener.
Newcomer Maslah Farah was outstanding in his Falcons’ debut scoring three of the five goals and seemed to be all over the pitch. “It felt amazing to wear the Falcon jersey for the first time,” he says. “The energy from the team and the crowd made it a memorable debut.”
He joined the Falcons this season after spending time in the Fraser Valley Soccer League (FVSL) last year, but his soccer journey has been very fascinating. Born in Somalia, Farah moved to Edmonton in 2012 where he grew up. He spent seven years in the Alberta capital until moving to Victoria in 2019 to play academy soccer to create other opportunities for himself. He was going back and forth from Victoria to Edmonton before leaving the Island for good, moving to Surry in 2022. Following that summer, he headed Europe to pursue his love for soccer in Finland in the FI Second Division. After the year he then moved again and played for Tajikistan TJ in the Middle East the next season. Eventually he decided to come back to Canada to enroll at Langara and the Falcons are excited to have him part of their roster, particularly after this past weekend.
On the pitch he is no stranger to hat tricks notching several over his soccer career. His last meaningful “hatty” came last year in the FVSL but had a few more during the fun summer tournament season.
So, which of the three on Saturday was his favourite goal? “My favourite was the third goal,” he says. “I received a long ball, played one touch back to our midfielder David (Rodrguez-Zegarra), who’s a phenomenal player and I have a great connection with on/off the pitch. I made a quick run behind the defence, once I saw the defender had momentum to catch up, I made a pass forward to myself off the back of my heal to create space and finished low into the corner.”
It really was a thing of beauty.
He does admit that he didn’t try and force scoring a third goal once he had two just to get a hat trick on Saturday. “I stayed focused on the game and let the third goal come naturally. I didn’t want to force anything.”
Farah and the Falcons split the weekend with the Blues and come into Week 2 at 1-1. They will play two home games this coming weekend when they host the Douglas Royals and VIU Mariners. Keep your eye on #9 for the Falcons on the pitch as Farah has proven he can pile in the goals in a hurry.