Fortune can be fickle a fickle thing, and there’s certainly nobody more aware of that right now than goalkeeper Milan Borjan.
The Serbia-born Canadian national-teamer (above), who stands to be the Canucks' starter for the immediate future, had cemented himself as the first choice ‘keeper for Turkish side Sivasspor over the past few weeks. But good luck can go bad in a second, and that was the case over the weekend as Borjan was stretchered off in the 63rd minute on Saturday as Sivasspor lost 2-1 to Akhisar Belediyespor.
Borjan reportedly injured his knee and is expected to miss about a month of action.
While Borjan is the future, at least for now, Lars Hirschfeld is the incumbent in the Canadian goal and he had a much better weekend as he backstopped Vålerenga in Norway’s Eliteserien to a 1-0 win over Tromso. With three games remaining in the season Vålerenga are in seventh place.
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Atiba Hutchinson continues to play every day at right back for PSV Eindhoven in the Netherlands. He went all 90 minutes in PSV’s 2-1 win over PEC Zwolle on Sunday, keeping second place in the Eredivisie.
In Germany, Olivier Occean played the full 90 minutes on Sunday as Eintracht Frankfurt lost 2-1 to Stuttgart. Frankfurt have alternated wins and losses over their last four games and slipped to third in the Bundesliga standings.
Meanwhile, Marcel de Jong and Augsburg lost 2-0 to Hamburger SV last Friday. De Jong played the entire game but with just one win on the season, Augsburg are second from bottom in the Bundesliga.
In Cyprus, Mike Klukowski continues to ride high with league leaders APOEL as they remain unbeaten seven games into the new 1. Division season. Klukowski was in the lineup on Saturday as APOEL beat Nea Salamis 3-0.
In England, the Canadian pair in League One had an up-and-down weekend as Iain Hume won with Doncaster Rovers and Marcus Haber lost with Stevenage.
Hume played 83 minutes on Saturday as Doncaster beat Notts County 2-0, their third win in a row and fourth win in five games — a run of form that has vaulted them to fifth in the English third-division table.
Haber, meanwhile, played 67 minutes on Saturday as Stevenage were thumped 4-0 by Swindon Town and now sit right above Doncaster in fourth place.
In Portugal, midfielder Pedro Pacheco played twice in the past week. Last Wednesday, he came on in the 78th minute for Santa Clara in their 2-0 loss to Sporting CP II. He then started and played 68 minutes as Santa Clara lost 1-0 to Sporting Covilha. Eleven games into the Portuguese second-flight season, The Azores-based club is in 16th place with 10 points.
In Sweden, a season to forget for goalkeeper Tomer Chencinski provided a rare moment of optimism on Sunday. Already relegated to the Swedish Suprettan for 2013, Chencinski picked up a clean sheet as Örebro beat IFK Goteborg 1-0.
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In Sweden's second division, Nik Ledgerwood played the entire game for Hammarby on Monday as they tied Trelleborg FF in the penultimate game of their season. The team coached by former US international Gregg Berhalter will finish fourth and just miss a promotion playoff.
The Finnish Veikkausliiga came to an end last weekend and, despite winning their final two games of the season, Nana Attakora's Haka will still be relegated to the second-flight Ykkonen.
Haka beat VPS 1-0 this past Saturday to salvage a hope that they could maintain their top-flight aspirations for next season. That hope didn’t last long as, later on Saturday, Jaro, with forward Frank Jonke in the lineup, beat TPS 2-1 to stay in the Veikkausliiga by a single point.
Forward Riley O’Neill finished his season with MyPa on a high as his sixth league goal of the season salvaged a tie with Mariehamn. MyPa finished in sixth place.
The S-League season in Singapore played their penultimate weekend and on Saturday midfielder Sherif El-Masri started and went 82 minutes for Young Lions as they tied Albirex Niigata S 2-2. Young Lions are in 10th place in the 13-team league.
The other Canadian in the league, Jordan Webb, got his 12th goal of the season Wednesday, but it wasn’t enough as Hougang United lost 3-1 to DPMM FC. He was also in the lineup on Monday as they closed out the season with a 0-0 draw with Harimau Muda.
