PLAYER’S DIARY: Changing positions changes Vancouver FC athlete’s career

Published 9:00 am Thursday, August 6, 2026

By Kian Proctor/Special to Langley Advance Times

Last season, I was playing as a striker for Simon Fraser University.

Now, in my first season as a professional with Vancouver FC, I’m playing as a defender.

Sometimes you need to be willing to play in a different position to take the next step.

I grew up playing local soccer in the Lower Mainland as a winger and attacking midfielder. I was an average winger and a collegiate-level striker. I wasn’t going to go pro in those positions.

Then I moved to defence last year and got a professional contract pretty quickly.

The first time I regularly played as a defender was with TSS Rovers in League1 BC. I played almost every minute at left-back in my last season there in 2025, but there was never really an individual conversation about the change. My head coach, Brendan Teeling, just wanted to use my size and speed in the back line and it worked well so I stayed there.

So, I’d play left-back during the summer with TSS and then move straight back to being a striker with SFU when September came around.

Then I got a bit lucky. I strained my hamstring and, when I was coming back, during a training session SFU put me in at centre-back – just to make up the numbers. I ended up doing well.

Nick Dasovic, who was a coach at SFU last year and is now with Vancouver FC, saw me play there and told me, “You’re going to be a centre-back one day.”

So he gradually transitioned me into the position, and that’s where I got my opportunity with Vancouver FC.

Since arriving here in Langley, I’ve played as a defender. First I arrived as a centre-back and then more often at left-back and left wing-back. But I did come off the bench as a striker in my first few CPL games, when I was returning from injury at the start of the season and we needed a goal.

So even now I have to stay flexible, but by far the position I’ve played most this season has been left-back.

I was named in the Canadian Premier League team of the week four times in six weeks in that position, and I was also named the CPL under-21 player of the month for June. So, no doubt it’s been a great move for me, but it required a lot of work and still does.

I’ve definitely had teammates who weren’t as open-minded about switching positions because they felt they already knew where they had the best chance of making it and where they preferred playing. My advice would be to look at the bigger picture.

The coach’s job is to win, so try to keep that in mind. It’s not like every position change has to be permanent. And even if it does become permanent, it might end up being the best thing that ever happened to you – like it was for me.

Once I became a defender, the biggest thing that helped me was watching my own game footage. I’d review every match, look at what I did well, what I got wrong, and then watch other players as well.

Throughout this World Cup especially, I’ve been studying the defensive side of the game.

It was a big shift from growing up watching attacking players and thinking about scoring and creating goals, to focusing on positioning and the tactical side of defending.

It wasn’t a clean shift at first. When I first moved to full-back, I was still very attack-minded and I’d bomb forward all the time because that’s what I was used to.

Being athletic and being able to recover into awkward defensive positions or deal with difficult balls is really important as a full-back. You have to do a lot of tucking in, and shifting across the back line to cover a lot of ground, so my athleticism definitely helps me.

I was always comfortable on the ball, but I wasn’t the strongest defensively. I really had to work on that side of my game. Even now, I still think I have plenty of room to grow tactically.

The biggest advice I could give anyone who is learning the position at full-back is to not be afraid to use your body. Obviously without fouling, but when you’re tight to a winger, using your body to slow them down or stop them turning can make a huge difference. It’s something you see the best defenders doing all the time when in that position.

I think using my body well has actually become one of the strengths of my game now.

The pathway that now exists in Canada from grassroots soccer, which for me was through League1 BC and university soccer, to the Canadian Premier League gave me the chance to develop at every step. It meant I could gain experience, grow as a player, and learn more about myself before earning my opportunity as a professional, and being ready to take it.

As a team we’ll all need to be at our best defensively this weekend when we face Forge FC, who are top of the table. The last time we went there we were 2-0 up at half-time in what felt like 50-degree heat, but ended up losing 3-2.

We’re now on a four-game winning streak and have beaten the two other teams in the top four in our last two matches.

Last weekend our 3-1 win over Atlético Ottawa 3-1 at the Stadium at Langley Events Centre meant we leapfrogged them into third place and it was one of our best performances of the season.

So, I don’t see any reason why we can’t go there this time and come away with some points to bring back to Langley.

– Kian Proctor is a 20-year-old Vancouver FC defender from Delta, who signed his first professional contract for the 2026 season after a standout year at SFU. He will be writing a weekly column this season, offering insight into himself and his new team.

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