National Training Center

[Franz Bakingpowder]

I just got back from our club training tonight to find out there is another "National Training Center Weekend" upcoming. I don't have a problem with the camps it's just that they aren't carried out in a professional manner.

My issue is that the CSA coaches have never called us being the club, or coaches to see if it's ok to invite our players to this camp. The reason I believe they should inform us is because we have important league games on these weekends and feel that they should inform us out of courtesy as to where our players are.

The other issue is that these camps run for 3 days straight! It starts on Friday night at 5:00 PM for 3 hours. Then they are to be back at the field the following morning at 7:00 AM for a full day session on the Saturday followed by another all morning fitness session on the Sunday. These kids are then expected to go play a league game Sunday afternoon with us? Are they kidding?! These CSA coaches are supposed to be professionals and know about pre-game preparation?? I wonder how they would feel if they had selected one of our players to play in a U-16 World cup qualifying match and we told them the player couldn't attend the pre-game meal due to our club having a fitness session! I do realize that club games aren't as important as World Cup qualifiers but shouldn't you approach every game the same?

Could you imagine if the England squad had a training camp weekend and expected all their players to show up for a Sunday morning fitness session a few hours before their league games? It's unheard of!

No wonder soccer in Canada is a complete "GONG SHOW!"

Better yet, the reason for the NTC weekend is so Ian Bridge can come and look at the players. Why does he need to see them train? He coaches the womens team! What a complete joke!

When will this circus ever leave town.....

Franz

 

[Fat Bastard]

Between club teams, provincial teams and national teams (not to mention academy teams such as RTESSE and TSS), these young kids both male and female are being run into the ground and pulled in different directions.

From what I gather from Franz's post, this NTC camp has been scheduled with short notice, and for no reason. (Why does Bridge have to see the boys train, shouldn't he be scouting the girls?)

Anyhow, I agree, it would be appropriate for the club coaches tio be notified of such camps. Also, would it be too difficult for the National program to announce a schedule of camps prior to the season, or perhaps annually. Then youth clubs, coaches, even leagues, might be able to make better arrangements to more adequately serve the needs of everyone, most of all the kids, many of whom have strong allegiances to their clubs as well as the other programs.

On a side note, a weekend national team camp is a farce. What's the point. The CSA should have each Provincial Association run a provincial program at each national team age group. These programs would be year round, with a clearly defined training schedule. National team coaches could then simply make regular visits to each province to scout the provincial programs in training.

We could go on and on for hours on the subject of national and provincial programs, but the bottom line here is that there needs to be increased communication between all levels, and a greater utilization of regionalized programs to enhance the national programs.

Unfortunately, I think that there are far too many personal agendas involved in Canadian soccer (at ALL levels) to allow for any of that to happen. Rather, we will continue to see redundancy and needless duplicity as each level continues to act in an exclusive manner, rather than in conjunction with each other.

Just my $0.02.

 

[djones]

Canadian National U17 Team Loses in the Semi Finals of the Città di Arco Tournament in Italy
Roma and Atalanta play in final

The Canadian U-17 team made it to the semi finals of the Città di Arco Tournament in Italy. They lost 2-1 to Atalanta, who plays Roma - winners over Juventus 4-2, in the final.

Canada open the scoring in the 3rd minute through Nunez but surrendered the lead in the 35th minute. Atalanta scored the winner 5 minutes later.

Apparently, the Italians were quite surprised and impressed with the Canadian team. I think they figured that Canada was going to be the s%$#s and not have a chance to trouble anyone. In the group stages they drew Parma 0-0, Torino 1-1 and beat Lazio 1-0, to win their group and make the semi-finals.

Teams in the tournament:

Arco (host)
Atalanta
Canada
Fiorentina
Internazionale
Jef United Chiba (Japan)
Juventus
Lazio
AC Milan
Parma
Reggina
Roma
Salernitana
Sampdoria
Torino
Trentino Alto Adige

If you can read Italian, here's the website: Città di Arco

With all these latest positive results, is the Canadian National Center really working? It's getting harder to say no. Let's see if Steven Hart can qualify the boys for the World U-17 Championship for the first time in a long time. Wasn't the last one we qualified for the one that we held in Toronto?