Soccer comes in from the cold

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This article was published 20/11/2022 (767 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Thirty-six years have passed since Canada’s last appearance on soccer’s grandest stage at the men’s World Cup.

The sport, once only generating trifling interest for most Winnipeggers, has become a hot topic for children and adults alike.

Locals will be glued to their screens when Canada’s national team kicks off against Belgium in Group F action in Qatar Wednesday (1 p.m. TSN).

“I think (the exposure) is crucial for everyone’s development — our country’s development in particular,” said Andrij Sawczuk, a 25-year-old Winnipegger who has been immersed in the game for as long as he can remember. “Especially all the younger athletes coming up…

“I got inspired by watching different games growing up with my family and I think that now that our home country, Canada, has made it to the biggest events in the world, other young athletes will get inspired the same way.”

Sawczuk, who played soccer at Freed-Hardeman University, an NAIA school in Henderson, Tenn., on a scholarship and spent a season with AaB Aalborg in Denmark, honed his game at Soccer’s Best Academy.

Returning to Winnipeg, Sawczuk is waiting for his next break while working out with fellow Soccer’s Best players and director/head coach Alex Esteves.

Last Friday, while the finest men’s teams were preparing for the opening of the sport’s biggest spectacle in Qatar, Sawczuk and young Winnipeggers such as 14-year-old Diego Munguia were coming out of the cold to practise their craft at Isaac Brock Community Centre.

Diego, a Grade 9 student at Sturgeon Heights Collegiate, and 10-year-old striker/midfielder Isaac Brito from Robert Browning School, want to follow the lead of players such as Sawczuk by earning a college scholarship and perhaps even playing professionally some day.

“I was watching a soccer match (on TV) and I got really inspired by it,” said Diego. “I just told my dad, ‘I just want to start playing soccer.’ ”

Added Esteves: “I think some of them come from the parents putting them in a sport to gain confidence. And the game of soccer does that. You can gain that confidence to be with those other 10 players on the field.”

It’s also clear the recent success of the national men’s team has stirred the imaginations of young players across the country.

“It’s really exciting to see them in the World Cup because it’s the first time in 36 years and that’s a big thing for them,” added Diego.

Creating options for local athletes is important to Esteves, who was born in Winnipeg but moved to Portugal as a nine-year-old to join a soccer academy. He returned to his hometown and founded the academy 15 years ago, in part, to give young players more grassroots support.

“In the ’80s, that was unseen in soccer,” said Esteves. “If you wanted to do something goal-oriented, you’d have to be in hockey or basketball or something else. In soccer, you didn’t even know what a scholarship was.”

A cold-weather climate has always been an impediment to the game in Manitoba but the construction of the Winnipeg Soccer Federation facility on Leila Avenue and the Subway Soccer Centre on the University of Manitoba campus have made year-round soccer possible.

“In the old days, you didn’t have a facility to play in except for the old Duncan Arena but now we have state-of-the-art facilities in the north and the south. You can actually play the game in an outdoor(-sized) field, so yeah, that’s definitely improved a lot,” said Esteves.

Ilah Marcelline, 12, a Grade 7 student at H.C. Avery Middle School, took up the game as a seven-year-old and was influenced to take it more seriously upon meeting Soccer’s Best grad, Caroline Kehrer.

Kehrer, a striker from Winnipeg, has followed a U.S. college career with a successful pro career that has taken her to Denmark and Hungary before landing with SC Braga in Portugal.

Mary-Kate Antoniuk, a 12-year-old striker from St. Mary’s Academy, wears No. 12 in honour of her favourite player — national women’s team captain Christine Sinclair. She got another boost when she met national team midfielder Desiree Scott of Winnipeg and attended her Pro Prep Academy camp.

Canada’s soccer gold medal at the 2021 Toyko Olympics was special for Antoniuk and many female players across the country.

“It was just really exciting,” said Mary-Kate. “It was good to see something that the women’s side has done and it was just really inspiring.”

Role models help set the table by attracting young players to game, Esteves said.

“The sport being more televised, the social media aspect of it and with Desiree Scott and even Caroline (Kehrer), I know M.K. and Ilah and all our young females players, they’re seeing that person live, right?” said Esteves. “She’s from here, they’re from Winnipeg and they made it. That’s huge…”

Kehrer teamed with another Soccer’s Best alumna, goalkeeper Chandra Bednar, to win a Hungarian league title with Ferencváros TC in 2021 after spending four years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Kehrer’s sister, Kaitlin, played NAIA soccer at Cumberland University in Tennessee. She is one of another 26 other academy grads to earn college scholarships.

“They all get the same message — it’s all about academics,” said Kehrer’s mom, Kim, who remains involved with the academy. “It’s all about time management, learning all of those things. So, by the time when they’re 18 and they’re leaving us and when they go to university to achieve their goals there, they can function.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14

Mike Sawatzky
Reporter

Mike has been working on the Free Press sports desk since 2003.

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