Wolves hit the field
Months of hard work came to fruition Monday night for the St. Catharines Club Roma Wolves organization.
The expansion franchise in the League1 Ontario Men’s Premier Division took to the field at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School with about 100 players on hand for the club’s first official tryout.
“Today was nerve wracking,” Club Roma head of operations for League1 Carmine Provenzano said. “Everybody wants to register at the last minute but now I can probably breath a little bit. We were just talking about how hectic it’s been.”
Club Roma has been without a semi-pro team since the Wolves dissolved following the 2014 season. The Wolves played in the Canadian Soccer League, which is a non-sanctioned circuit not affiliated with Canada Soccer.
Roma had submitted an application to join the league for the 2021 season and got the thumbs up on New Year’s Eve of last year, but had several stops and starts due to the COVID pandemic.
“We’re on the edge of something good here,” Provenzano said. “We’re really excited.”
Provenzano said the club held a few unofficial workouts the last few weekends in an attempt to try get an idea of the talent level in the area.
“We know kids in the area. It’s not like we’re jumping in blindly, but there are a lot of kids we don’t know,” he said. “It’s very difficult to pick players right now.”
The plan is to hold workouts again Wednesday and Friday and by the end of Friday select 25 players for the Premier team and another 18 for the reserve squad.
Head coach Federico Turriziani and his staff will then hold two workouts Saturday and another Sunday with the selected players as they prepare for the season schedule which is slated to being in late July.
While the official schedule has yet to be released, Provenzano indicated each team in the Premier League would play seven games. The Wolves will play their home games Friday night at Club Roma.
“We’ll play twice a week, home and away, and that will be it,” Provenzano said. “The players then go back to college and university so it doesn’t overlap with their school. That was a big thing. We were nervous about them not running a shortened season.”
The reserve schedule will run from July to late October and feature more games.
‘We’re still waiting for schedules, the competition format and requirements for home games (from the league),” Provenzano said.
Provenzano feels the shortened schedule may be a blessing in disguise.
“We think we’re going to have a young team and for them I think it’s a good thing to get their feet wet and understand League1 and the quality that is there,” he said. “I knew it would happen because the organization is there. Maybe we were thinking it might be next season, but I’m glad we got a shortened season.”
Provenzano has been pleased with the response from the local business community to help fund the club.
“So far we have gotten great support in a COVID time,” he said.
League1 Ontario is the province’s pro-am, standards-based, senior league. The league began in 2014 with a 10-team men’s division, which has now grown to 20 teams in the men’s division and includes a separate 14-team women’s division. League1 serves as a stepping stone between the high-performance youth level and elite amateur and professional levels of the game.
The league is owned and managed by Canadian Soccer Business (CSB) and sanctioned by FIFA through the domestic bodies of Canada Soccer and Ontario Soccer.
Guelph United (Guelph), Scrosoppi FC (Milton) and Waterloo United (Waterloo) will also join the league this season.
Other teams in the league are: Alliance United, Darby FC, FC London, Hamilton United S.C., Masters FA Saints, North Mississauga SC, North Toronto SC, Oakville Blue Devils, Pickering FC, Pro Stars FC, Sigma FC, Toronto Skillz, Unionville-Milliken SC, Vaughan SC, Windsor TFC and Woodbridge SC.
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