Thursday, April 1, 2010

Two Brazilian Soccer Schools Burlington Players invited to Train with Toronto FC

Brazilian Soccer Schools Burlington is pleased to announce that two of its players have been invited to train with the Toronto FC academy program during April. Adam Bouchard, 14, and Anthony Petrolo, 16, have been training with Brazilian Soccer Schools Burlington since 2009 and this opportunity is a result of their hard-work and dedication over several months.

Toronto FC provides a clear pathway for players who seek to play in the professional game as well as pursue academic and athletic scholarships. While the primary goal of the Toronto FC Academy is to ultimately find a player for the first team, it is also to ensure that young players have an opportunity to enter into their program, and hopefully obtain a university scholarship (academic or athletic).

Stuart Neely, Head Coach of the Toronto FC Academy was optimistic that the Brazilian Soccer Schools program in Burlington can continue to provide its players with a clear pathway towards higher levels of the game.
“We have a massive task to scout Ontario alone and as such we can’t do it alone. In the footballing community there are good people who have good opinions about the game and players and we use them to help us in our search. Ian McClurg of BSS Burlington Hamilton has been a friend and close colleague for a number of years now and any recommendations from him are always welcome to attend”.

When Toronto FC receives a letter of recommendation from a coach, club or organization about a player, they investigate with follow-up calls to many people and then seek to bring the player in for a 1, 2 or 3 week trial. This is obviously dependant on how the player does each week. It is a very competitive environment at both our Junior and Senior Academy teams. The Academy trains daily with our school boys from 2-5pm and then 5-7pm (M, T, W and F) with our trialists. All of these sessions take place at Lamport Stadium and are closed door. The Friday session takes place at BMO field in the strength and conditioning rooms.

Neely added “ we look forward to seeing Anthony Petrolo and Adam Bouchard in the near future at our trials and we are confident they will receive good training in an intense atmosphere with a positive learning outcome for both. Ian’s program is situated in the heart of a good footballing area with many talented players around and the more eyes we can have out there is only positive for the game and obviously Toronto FC and BSS Burlington. . We thank Ian for his continued support of Toronto FC and its Academy”.