A glimpse at Niagara soccer’s future
A glimpse of the future of the Niagara College’s men’s soccer team was on display Wednesday night at the Fifth Annual Niagara College Knights Niagara Region Soccer Showcase at Youngs Sportsplex.
Among the athletes suiting up in the game were several heading to Niagara College to try out for the Knights soccer team, including Nick Pringle and Oti Frigole from Governor Simcoe, Dean Miller from Port Colborne, Patrick Loanidis from Greater Fort Erie, Altin Ibrahimi from Holy Cross, Nick DiPasquale from St. Francis and Hayden Ladouceur from Denis Morris.
“Getting local guys helps with long-term recruitment and it helps with our fan base, but they still have to make the team on their own merit,” Niagara head coach Frank DeChellis said. “We don’t pick by geography.”
But local players do have home field advantage when it comes to cracking the roster.
“If you are a local boy, you are sleeping in your own bed and you are eating mom’s cooking,” he said.
DeChellis knows that attracting the best local players to any post secondary sports program increases that program’s chance of being successful.
“It has taken about five years, but we have built a great network with the high school coaches and Rino (assistant coach Berardi) has put a lot of work into it,” he said. “Coaches are now calling us to come look at players and they are referring players to us.”
Players are also lobbying their coaches for a spot in the Niagara Showcase.
Of the seven players who have said they are coming to Niagara College, DeChellis feels at least five have an excellent chance of making the roster.
One of those players is Ibrahimi.
“Altin is a very smart player, very smooth and he’s like a silent killer,” DeChellis said. “He doesn’t play with his feet. He plays with his head.”
Niagara College may have to wait one year for Ibrahimi. The Club Italia under-21 travel player is considering 12B or taking a year off to work. He will eventually arrive at Niagara.
“Overall, it is a pretty good school and I think the soccer will be a bit more exciting,” he said. “It’s a higher level of competition and there’s good spirit with the team.”
There’s also the appeal of going to school close to home.
“My parents would get too sad if I left,” the youngest of four kids said, with a smile. “I am their favourite too.”
Ibrahimi plans to keep working on his game to get ready for Niagara.
“I am going to train as much as I can, get lot of touches on the ball every day and get my cardio up so I can stay in tune with the game at a faster pace.”
He describes his style of play as more cerebral.
“I like to see the bigger picture and the more touches I get on the ball, the better I play.”
In the past few years, he feels he has managed to increase his game speed and he’s physically stronger.
At Niagara College, he plans to study sports management.
“I would like to work in anything to do with soccer,” he said. “Manager, scout, anything.”
Team White won Wednesday’s game by a 2-1 margin thanks to goals by Evan Charnock of Denis Morris and Sebastian Argudo of Holy Cross. Charnock was named his team’s player of the match. Blessed Trinity’s Patrick Alvarez scored for Team Blue and St. Mike’s Oreyn Hall was named his squad player of the game.
