AFC Toronto defeats demons with 3-0 victory over Rapid FC

By Daniel Carrero

Photos by Daniel Carrero

In their return from a two-week international break, AFC Toronto earned their first win against Ottawa Rapid FC after a 3-0 victory on Thursday night at York Lions Stadium (YLS). 

Toronto gave the 2510 fans at YLS something to cheer for, as they beat the only team in the Northern Super League (NSL) they hadn’t defeated yet.

But beyond the result, the match meant so much more. Toronto hosted a theme night celebrating Korean culture, offering a special occasion for AFC’s Korean international Hye-ji Hong and Ottawa’s Choo Hyojoo and Lee Min-a.

“That's why Toronto is special. Very multicultural…We're proud of the fact that we welcome everyone,” said head coach Marko Milanovic, who added he is not originally from Canada. “So all of these nights are a good opportunity just to reflect on that and to celebrate some of that heritage.”

AFC’s starting-11 featured striker Jade Kovacevic in her first start of the season, as premier goalscorer Esther Okoronkwo is currently representing Nigeria at the 2025 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations. 

Similarly, second goalkeeper Sierra Cota-Yarde, who’s representing Portugal in the UEFA Women’s EURO 2025, was replaced on the bench by Noelle Henning. Sofia Manner started in goal for the seventh time this season. 

Ottawa lined up with striker Delaney Baie Pridham as their main attacking threat and their usual double pivot featuring captain Desiree Scott and Ellen Gibson. But despite ghosts in the rear mirror—due to Pridahm’s hat trick in their last encounter—Kaylee Hunter’s brace and Cloey Uddenberg’s late goal leave Toronto atop the NSL standings with 22 points.

“That's the beauty of this league. No game is a give-me,” said Scott. “We came in here with confidence, but not playing like ourselves. Toronto capitalized on the mistakes that we made, and they are a quality side that can punish you if you're not playing up to your best potential.”

Before kickoff, Japanese baseball player Ayami Sato—the first woman to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs baseball team—performed the kickoff ceremony along with AFC’s Aoi Kizaki.

During the first minutes of the game, AFC were more organized and poised with the ball on their feet. Good tempo and positioning allowed Toronto to counterattack Ottawa’s 61 per cent of the ball possession in the first 15 minutes.

Despite Ottawa’s high possession, AFC gained the lead in the 17th minute as a result of constant pressure from midfielder Nikayla Small in the final third of the pitch, a direct instruction from Milanovic.

“We did quite well to prevent transition tonight. So we locked our half pretty well, and our back line…did a really nice job to keep their distances while we were in possession inside their half,” said Milanovic.

The Rapid tried to track back, but Small’s through-pass allowed Hunter to run at full speed toward the goal. With a slow-driven shot towards the far post, she earned AFC their first tally and some much-needed momentum.

She went to the corner of the pitch and celebrated by paying tribute to the late Liverpool FC and Portugal forward Diogo Jota with the cross-legged celebration he was known for. 

https://x.com/northernsuperlg/status/1943496877372068090?s=46&t=tg-7xUzYKoQvzb3LtJbsAQ 

Hunter didn’t take her foot off the pedal from there. Seven minutes after her first goal, she took advantage of a mistake by goalkeeper Mollie Eriksson while handling the ball on the edge of the box. After knocking the Swedish international off the ball, the 17-year-old was left completely alone in front of the goal and scored her second of the night.

“I just try to, every day, just go out there and have fun and do my best efforts,” said Hunter, who leads AFC Toronto with six goals so far this season. “I've been hitting the back of the net. So hopefully that just keeps going, and we could keep on winning games.”

Instead of being pressed by the two-goal disadvantage, Ottawa reacted to the goal by applying strong pressure.

In the 36th minute, Stella Downing regained possession after forcing Croix Soto to make a mistake. Her tackle led to a clean shot at goal for Pridham, which bounced off the post and straight onto the foot of Melanie Forbes, who made no mistake on the tap-in.

Nevertheless, the referee ruled the goal offside for Pridham’s positioning, which left Rapid FC head coach Katrine Pedersen frustrated as she spoke for a few minutes with the fourth official, protesting the call.

“We make mistakes that are crucial for us. Referees can make mistakes as well,” said Pedersen after the match. “The way I saw it, it was not offside, but that is just how the game is. That's how football is.”

AFC used the rest of the half to recompose defensively, and with the help of Manner in goal, led the game 2-0 at the break. With Toronto in control, Ottawa was left to completely rethink the game.

“We went into the locker room not happy with our first half performance, but we are a team that believes in who we are,” said Scott. “The messaging in the locker room was ‘We have a whole half to go, 2-0 is a hard deficit to come back from, but we believe in who we are and our fight and our grit.’”

Going into the second half, Ottawa aimed to snatch control of the game, while Toronto time-managed the game to their advantage.

“In the second half, we were a bit more conservative than we usually play,” said Milanovic. “But we also were missing a lot of players, and legs were starting to go.”

This led to a sloppy and chippy 45 minutes for the two teams. In an attempt to counter the slow half, Milanovic gave minutes to some players who haven't played for quite some time—such as Uddenberg—who came into the game in the 75th minute for Victoria Pickett.

Uddenberg hadn’t played for AFC since April 27, when they fell 2-1 to Ottawa on the road.

“Uddenberg played the first two games, hasn't played a minute since,” said Milanovic. “If you were in our environment on a daily basis, you would never know that—she does absolutely everything right.”

The Richmond Hill, Ont., product had her chance to shine in the 90th minute after receiving a pass from Kovacevic near the penalty spot. With a single powerful touch to the ball, she gave Eriksson too much to handle, sending the ball crippling into the net and flipping the scoreboard to 3-0.

“It's a really good example of getting rewarded when you do everything right,” said Milanovic. “She's waited a while, and I'm really happy for her, we all are.”

It took three games for Toronto to beat Ottawa, but captain Emma Regan recognized the effort from the team in their chance at retribution for a 4-0 defeat on June 7.

“Both losses to Ottawa [fueled us]. I think that's one thing that this team does really well, is bounces back from things like that,” said Regan. “I was really proud of the team. I kind of said that going in today is our redemption, and we definitely fulfilled that.”

UP NEXT: AFC Toronto will now quickly focus their minds to travel to the Wanderers Ground and face the Halifax Tides on Tuesday, July 15. Kick-off is set for 5:30 p.m. EST.