Flying Away To Brazil

Courtesy Richard Starnes, Ottawa Citizen

Young soccer stars get opportunity of lifetime

The Canadian road to a professional soccer career is strewn with sharp rocks and blocked by boulders too heavy for most to roll aside.

There is no pattern of development for young players. Talented teenagers with stars in their eyes are sacrificed as provincial associations and the Canadian Soccer Association fight for individual rights in a morass of political intrigue. The coaching is not good enough. The professional game is not strong enough.

Nobody, it appears, knows how to put things right. Many don’t even want to.

That is why it is so refreshing to discover a group of Ottawa-area teenagers preparing to go looking for a way forward, a place where they can learn from the best, even a chance at a soccer career.

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