George Pakos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Pakos (born August 14, 1952 in Victoria) is a former Canadian international soccer player. His goals were crucial in Canada qualifying for its only FIFA World Cup finals to date, in 1986.

An amateur player with the Victoria Athletic Association men's soccer team for much of his playing days, the midfielder Pakos scored 5 times in 22 'A' internationals, all of which he earned from age 29 on. In 1986 FIFA World Cup qualification as a 33 year old who had been cut from the team after the first round of qualifying, a recalled Pakos scored the lone goal in a vital away win at Honduras and also scored the first goal in a 2-1 home victory against Honduras that clinced Canada's birth in their only finals appearance.

Pakos played his first senior (adult age) soccer with the London Boxing Club (which later became the VAA) in 1975. The side won the Canadian national amateur club championship in 1976. He began work at the same time as a water-metre tecnnician for the city of Victoria, a job he continued for over 25 years. The second son of Polish immigrants, George's father Zenon played professionally in Poland before being displaced by the war.

Spotted by coach Bob Bearpark while playing for the Vancouver Island Selects amateur team, Pakos made his team Canada debut at age 29. He also played for Bearpark in 2 Olympic qualifying matches in 1983 against Bermuda, scoring once in each game. He was however left off the team that reached the quarterfinals of the games.

Pakos did play briefly professionally in the Western Soccer Alliance in 1985 with the Victoria Riptide.

Pakos was head coach of V.A.A.'s Division 2 men's team of the Vancouver Island Soccer League in 2005-06.

Pakos was also in the media due to the life in prison sentence handed down to his step-daughter Kelly Ellard in 2004 for her role in the 1997 murder of fellow teenager Reena Virk.


Flag of Canada Canada squad - 1986 FIFA World Cup Flag of Canada

1 Lettieri | 2 Lenarduzzi | 3 Wilson | 4 Ragan | 5 Moore | 6 Bridge | 7 Valentine | 8 Gray | 9 Segota | 10 Vrablic | 11 Sweeney | 12 Samuel | 13 Pakos | 14 Mitchell | 15 James | 16 Ion | 17 Norman | 18 Lowery | 19 De Luca | 20 Miller | 21 Habermann | 22 Dolan | Coach: Waiters

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