Toronto FC go into break still looking for ways to improve
TFC appears to be moving into the next stage of its re-development program as the team takes the MLS World Cup break riding a five game undefeated streak. Coach Preki’s evangelism has preached the virtues of hard work and unity his players and anyone else who follows this team can repeat without thinking twice. After a slow, shaky start to 2010, the Reds sit in better shape than ever before a third of the way into the season.

Now it is the more subtle influences of the new man’s well practiced coaching style showing results.

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Vancouver hopes cut but still alive after scoreless draw with Toronto in Voyageurs Cup play
If you had to put a highlight reel together on first half action in last night’s Voyageurs Cup match in Vancouver, you would be hard pressed to come up with something. Toronto FC exhibited a road weary look from the grind of a busy game and travel schedule, while the Whitecaps just appeared hapless. Add to that a paltry crowd due to some dangerously inclement pregame weather moving through the Vancouver area and you get the idea of the mood.

An uninspired effort is often the case in competitions like these that strain fixture dates to the limit.

But there was lots on the line in this one. Vancouver needing at least a draw to keep their hopes going, showed the first signs of coming alive after the break.

In the 56th minute a well placed 35 yard free kick by the Caps midfield general Ricardo Sanchez created some Toronto scrambling to defend. It also alerted the Reds to remember they were here to reduce Vancouver chances to the minimum.

By the 62nd minute mark, Toronto had made all three of their changes, bringing in Nick Garcia for a tired Nana Attakora at the back, Chad Barrett for O’Brien White to ignite an offensive threat and Martin Saric in the mid for Gabe Gala.

Still, the Whitecaps carried most of the play, though little in the way of a dangerous assault on goal. Toronto tried to keep pace, but few efforts were capable of carrying through. It wasn’t until 83 minutes that TFC got their first crack at goal. A hard shot by tireless captain Dwayne De Rosario caused keeper Nolly to come up big to keep his team’s Nutrilite Canadian Championship series hopes alive. Even that effort did not prove enough incentive for the visitors to try finishing it all.

It was the Whitecaps who came up with repeated effort to work the flanks and create chances that wound up little more than a series of Martin Nash taken corners coming to nothing.

Vancouver did not get the result they were after, but the tournament is still alive. Barely.. Should the Whitecaps get by the Impact next Wednesday in Montreal they will still have to beat TFC on their home turf in the final Nutrilite match June 2.

Toronto heads home satisfied they turned in their best away effort in memory, gaining a win in Montreal, a scoreless draw against MLS league leading LA Galaxy, and a tightening of the screws on Vancouver’s plans to lift the Voyageurs Cup.

Soccer Academy Alliance Canada gets OSA approval
After several years of unsuccessfully applying to the Ontario Soccer Association for official recognition, SAAC, a national association of privately owned, soccer skills teaching schools or academies, has been voted into the fold.

SAAC is now an Associate Member of the OSA. In a vote of the Board the OSA passed RFD 2010-007, a referendum tabled earlier this year to give Associate Membership to the Soccer Academy Alliance of Canada.

“This is a big step towards legitimizing to the professional academy system in Canada and helping SAAC achieve it’s vision of becoming the primary player development platform in Canada.”

Lino Terra Commissioner of the SAAC

Throughout the world, the academy system has been the standard bearer of quality coaching and elite player development. For reasons unclear or perhaps untold, officialdom in the soccer community has resisted their incorporation into the mainstream. And, that has hindered the realization of our soccer playing youth’s full potential. Until today. At least in Ontario.

“Today’s OSA approval for SAAC Associate membership means that the real work is just about to start. The academies will be entering a new phase in Canadian Soccer with the objective of building a solid foundation for player and coach development. I challenge the Canadian soccer society to join the academies alliance – SAAC – in achieving its mission to develop World Class soccer players in Canada on a continual and
systematic basis, by providing our members with best-in-class training, facilities and competition.”

Bassam Naim ANB Academy Director

Where are we hiding the coaches to develop our players?
Putting soccer stories together is a satisfying way to meet lots of super people doing great things in our sport. Their thoughts and opinion come zinging in from all different directions. What a trigger many have been to dig deeper and find out more about the broader impact of what they have to say.

Whether we as journalists admit it or not, how we think and the way we put the things we write is molded and re-shaped by the people we get to meet. Some of the favorite themes of journalists are just a compilation of what we hear. Honestly, very little is original thinking.

Paul James, the football player turned soccer coach, turned soccer writer told me on more than a couple of occasions of the impossible task he had coaching Canada’s under 20’s to a respectable showing in the 2001 world championship. Sometimes as if it were a weight around his neck and on others as if revealing the secret to future success, James remains bothered by the lack of urgency in our development program moving forward.

A few years back, one magazine story I did in a series about player development led to insightful conversations with soccer academy guys like Gary Miller and Bill Ault and digging into the hard work of Lino Terra, Commissioner of the Soccer Academy Alliance of Canada. That turned out to be a big eye opener on Ontario Soccer Association charades to shut the door on real soccer development in the province and representative of nation-wide obstacles quality soccer thinkers face.

I think of one man I used to play regularly with who truly was a very good footballer and thought himself a great youth coach. He was of the opinion coaching certification was an un-necessary requirement. It was the kind of stuff we usually only discussed up at the local after a match and fear of another broken nose kept me from telling Liam it was too many pints that kept him from being a great footballer and a good coach. I learned a lot from the guy though.

Most recently, writing the weekly tour of Canada’s CONCACAF competition did some of the things I have seen in action on soccer visits with an array of people in various of those countries sync with what we could, maybe should be doing back at home.

In short, many CONCACAF nations – football countries they are – know they must get all their promising talents into the dedicated, professional atmosphere at the earliest opportunity. If not, the national teams program will languish in mediocrity.

Just hanging about the hotel lobby on a World Cup qualifying campaign and talking casual soccer stuff, Bob Lenarduzzi once told me the number one difference between the Canada team he played on in the 1986 World Cup and the one he was now coaching was the number of professional playing opportunities the North American Soccer League offered him each member of the team. Nothing new and earth shattering there, but it helps having witnessed the longing on not only Bobby’s face, but a half dozen other members of that Hall of Fame team.

The point James was making about his under 20 team that failed to score and gave up nine in three matches, is a comparison of the match programs. Starting line-ups that boasted unattached, recreational club and university players pitted against teams representing a who’s who of most famous professional teams in South America and Europe. How do you go up against that?

Things have improved since the Mexico City Lenarduzzi lobby bar chat and some of it comes from Bobby’s own leadership at the Whitecaps, their academy and continuity of a professional soccer presence. Add to the Caps, a new tier two team for next season in Edmonton, continued Impact in Montreal, Toronto FC and their academy development and continuing growth of the Canadian Soccer League, we have improvement. It is still far short of enough pro options for elite player placement.

I found it very interesting to see Chelato Uclés comments last week. It will be interesting to follow how the well regarded Honduran player development coach does structuring Belizes’ new found interest in building a Central American presence. His only choice there is to base it all on developing coaches.

Thanks to new FIFA requirements, nonstop persistence of the Soccer Alliance of Canada and do-the- right-thing diligence of one OSA director-at-large, Bill Spiers, our Association and the Ontario Association will finally have to accept the SAAC as Affiliate Members. What makes that so important?

Well, we are not all that far ahead of Belize. Canada does not have enough of the pro environment Paul James was talking about to come close to even tiny El Salvador.

Let us face this one straight on though ok? Canada can foster the development of real, professional coaches. A couple hundred of them. It is a manageable task. The “league of professional coaches”.

The SAAC has done it. Not the Canadian Soccer Association, Ontario Soccer Association and a good guess is every other provincial association can match SAAC membership’s water-mark for highly trained coaches. Their recommended minimum requirement exceeds the National Training Center requirement!

With all due respect Gov, you cannot keep tipping pints with my old buddy Liam.

Just how significant is Canada’s disappointing performance over the week end
No, not the national team.

In a match that was a major milestone of accomplishment, our 2014 World Cup team lost their first friendly 1 – 0 in Jamaica Sunday evening. The result there is secondary. What does matter is this match and the preceding training camp mark the first time our association demonstrated the will to make campaign and preparation two active words in their vocabulary.

It’s our under 20 women.

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Canada fail in bid to repeat as champions
In a semi-final match that went into extra time to decide a winner, Canada was knocked out of the CONCACAF under-20 women’s tournament by Mexico. The lone goal of the match came off a corner by Charlyn Corral in the 104th minute. Mishandled, the ball found a way over the line in the most cruel of ways for keeper Cynthia Leblanc whose stand-out performance was the lone reason Canada still had a chance.

The Mexicans presented a well organized, technically sound and tactically understanding problem our Canadian girls could not overcome.

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This week’s commentary: Comments made in a non-malicious way
I can just faintly recall as a small boy sitting in Sunday school and the guy up front telling how the Lord helps those who have squeaky wheels, or something like that. To a little kid, that didn’t seem an unusual assumption considering the physics of the universe and all that. This is not a dump on the CSA commentary. Lets get this right, right off the top. Over the years I have been told by people in the Metcalfe Street mansion my comments were such things as harsh, unfair, unjust – if you can believe that one – and even demeaning.

Through each complete era of Lenarduzzi, Osiek, Miller the interim, Yallop, Hart the interim, Mitchell, and the second coming of Hart the interim, keeping the movement of their employers under a microscope evolved into something resembling a crusade that helped me better understand just how tough a job each of these guys faced.

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The Joy Of Football
ISM was in San Jose to witness Costa Rican disappointment as their Tico’s lost an important world cup qualifier 0 – 3 to Mexico. It did not matter to the locals they had faced a determined opponent who have recovered their form. Falling from hexagonal group leader to fourth in a single night sunk this futbol crazed nation into a state of disaster, much more newsworthy than the strong earth tremor that shook the northwestern part of the country early the following morning.

As one newspaper reporter put it, “A Mexican tsunami struck Costa Rica and swamped Ricardo Saprissa Stadium with sadness.”

Most Canadian World Cup team supporters would be satisfied if our nation could even qualify for the hexagonal level of CONCACAF qualifying.

In this player development focused issue of Inside Soccer, we have to ask ourselves how a relatively poor country of 4.5 million inhabitants consistently outperform our seemingly well structured, abundantly infrastructured, wealthy Canadian clout.

The common protest, “It is in their blood”, has become too well-worn.

Addressing the post game press, Tico coach Rodrigo Kenton and various of his players made much use of the word “alegria” as they expressed disappointment in not being able to deliver the joy the nation had been anticipating from the match. In complete unison, the instant Andres Guardado tapped a Giovani Dos Santos pass into the open Tico net with 20 minutes still remaining to be played, that blood boiled and there was a mad rush to empty the stadium.

Pura Vida
Culture is a factor. A visit to Sunday in the park confirms it. We might label it a bewildering bustle of darting bodies and bouncing balls but they call it futbol mejenga. The scene I witnessed in the Sabana or central park of the capital repeats itself in every city, town and village across the nation. My restaurant waiter says with alegria, “We are a poor country but every village has two important things you are sure to find; a church and a mejenga campo.”

It is at these weekly football picnics most young players develop their skill and understanding of the game. Playing day-long matches – they seem to have no formal start nor ending – with older players is how they learn. Enter and leave for a snack break whenever you like is how it works. In some instances games were being played in layers on the same pitch with maybe one match running full length and two others going on cross-field. If you are “alegre” this doesn’t create problems; only better ball control. Everyone was “alegre”.

Organized, youth football programs are nonexistent In fact, near the playing fields and on the fringe of the same “sabana” but totally out of touch, stands the recently abandoned home of the Football Federation. So close and yet so far.

It is a wonderful place Costa Rica, where people live the Pura Vida credo. Life is much better than most Latin American countries, and the economic future looks bright. Citizens are proud of their ecology and conservation record and the green movement is proud of them.

Actually San Jose’s streets are clean enough and litter free enough to be reminiscent of Toronto a decade or so ago. Strangely for Latin America, the streets are also clear of kids playing soccer. Many people were asked the best place to get a street soccer photo and the respectfully law abiding reply was always “nowhere” followed by either “it’s not safe” or “it is against the law”.

Really, only mejenga then for these people who have futbol in their blood.

Is it missing awareness or missing need that keeps youth development on a back burner somewhere? That cannot be it. Perhaps just a lack of interest or lack of resources at the top to get things moving.

With the financial help of FIFA’s Project Goal the Costa Rica Futbol Federacion has moved into yet to be completed facilities which are further detached from the football playing populace. Located far out of the city in rural San Rafael de Alajuela and begun in 2004, construction of the building and three playing fields – one of which is artificial surface – has stalled on several occasions, only to be revived by four FIFA cash infusions. The most recent of these, another $400,000 which should be advanced soon, will be paid directly to the contractor to assure all monies reach their intended purpose. It will take more money from the federation – money they are hoping to get by making a world cup appearance – to see the project finally completed in two more years.

It amounts to an isolated national training center with office space for the FFCR and each of 6 leagues which operate in the country, sports medicine facilities, kitchens, and a conference hall. It would seem an originally proposed dormitory has been scratched, at least for now.

In the end, total cost will be 5 to 6 million dollars and seven years of elapsed time.

Development doesn’t run much deeper than mejenga. This is where club teams get their talent. In turn, the club teams supply the national teams program and still, with much too much regularity, it trumps what Canada is able to achieve.

It must be a great feeling of accomplishment for community clubs across our country to see municipalities and private individuals pouring so much money into facilities. Obviously the money is there. In our very next issue, Inside Soccer will be taking a special look at our own facilities situation. A gluttonous comparison it will be.

Most coincidently, a great Canadian equivalent to Proyecto Gol springs to mind.

The Rockwood FC in the municipality of Guelph Eramosa Township awaits a similarly budgeted project of 5 to 6 million dollars. The town of only about 11,000 is constructing an indoor – outdoor soccer complex to rival the Costa Rican national project with one big difference. Groundbreaking will be early in October with completion by spring! But, you will hear more about that next issue.

Somehow with all the organization and all the training and all the administration and all the records keeping and all the rules and all the regulations, something is being missed, something doesn’t flow through the blood of our associations to their members. An important thing is overlooked. It is the something all youngsters thrive on and all adults wish they had been able to keep. That really big, impacting element is not being promoted. Like any product, any idea, it could be. That it is not, holds Canada back.

Could it be “alegria”. We are so close and yet so far.