Article by Djuradj Vujcic
A ticket stub from the match
Continuing our newly founded tradition of finding and posting interesting finds from the archives (of which most have never before been seen), we now travel fifteen years back in time to September 13, 2007.
On that day, the Serbian White Eagles played in a league encounter against Toronto Croatia at a packed Centennial Stadium in Etobicoke. The derby match (dubbed the Centennial Thriller) ended 1–1 which kept the Serbian White Eagles on top of the International Division with eleven wins, four losses and two ties totaling 35 points. Toronto Croatia midfielder Boris Tomac opened the scoring in the 23rd minute but the Serbian White Eagles picked up the pace in the second half as Gabriel Pop scored his twelfth goal of the season when he slid the ball inside the Toronto Croatia post to the left of goalkeeper George Azcurra in the 60th minute. Pop ended up finishing the 2007 Canadian Soccer League campaign as the league’s second highest goalscorer with 18 goals.
Led by head coach Sinisa Ninkovic and assistant coach Aleksandar Krivokapic, the Serbian White Eagles played with a starting lineup of George Radan, Dragorad Milicevic, Joshua Gordon, Mirko Medic, Ricardo Munguia, Nikola Budalic, Nenad Stojcic, Sasa Viciknez, Alex Braletic, Dragan Radovic and Gabriel Pop. On the bench were Arthur Zaslavski, Noel Ellerton, Milos Scepanovic, Rato Boroja, Uros Stamatovic, Mihajlo Bacanin and Danilo Maksimovic.
One of the referees on the night was Joe Fletcher who would go on to ref at both the 2014 and 2018 FIFA World Cups.
A fun fact is that Toronto FC goalkeeper Srdjan Djekanovic was at this match. He would go on to say, “I was pleasantly surprised from the quality of the match to the number of people in attendance. The day after, I was telling the Toronto FC players in the locker room how, while I was freezing, our shirtless fans were rooting for the Eagles the whole time. True fans!”