The University of British Columbia Okanagan Men\u2019s Soccer team \u2014 the UBCO Heat \u2014 recently came to Nelson as part of its pre-season preparations, sharing their camp with and playing matches against local teams of young players and alumni.
The team\u2019s August 4-5 visit \u2014 under the leadership of head coach Dante Zanatta \u2014 was in recognition of the quality of facilities, the strength of the local soccer community, and the talented players being developed through Nelson Soccer and the Kootenay United Football Academy (KUFA).<\/p>\n
Brett Adams, Technical Director of the Nelson Soccer Association and the Kootenay United Football Academy\u2019s director, said the visit offered local players the opportunity to learn from one of Canada\u2019s top university programs, and highlights the growing reputation of soccer in the Kootenays.<\/p>\n
\u201cThroughout their stay, UBCO players worked directly with the young athletes, helping inspire the next generation of soccer players in our region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For the occasion, KUFA and Nelson Soccer put together an U17-18 team, which took on the UBCO team on the Tuesday night, August 4.
\u201cIt was a well-matched affair,\u201d Adams said. \u201cDante brought a squad of 23-24 players, and got every one of them out on the pitch. There was a lot of interchanging, so he was using the game for that reason. But the game ended 4-2.
\u201cBut the boys really put on a show. They never stopped working, and play against a team of that calibre, and to keep working, and put up some points was pretty awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Game 2 on the Wednesday night, featured an alumni team who battled for 90 minutes, even though the final score was 5-1 UBCO.
The sidelines the over the two nights were packed with spectators of all ages. \u201cAnd the kids were there,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThe six- and seven-year-olds came out to watch the UBCO and the young Nelson players. It was pretty inspirational.\u201d
Zanatta was extremely happy with the two nights\u2019 work his team got against the locals, Adams said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo much so that he\u2019s looking at future opportunities to come back and play again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dIt was great to come to Nelson for a couple days and play two games and expose the community to the level of U sports at the start of our preseason,\u201d Zanatta said of his team\u2019s visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing able to do a small camp with the young players was a bonus thanks to Nelson soccer and Brett for setting it all up and we look forward in hopefully doing it again.\u201d <\/p>\n
The visit of the UBCO men\u2019s soccer team, and its interaction with the local players and associations, is indicative of growth of soccer in Nelson and across the Kootenays.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe universities are starting to see how much talent that is being created in area,\u201d Adams said. \u201cThe [local] clubs are doing a great job in terms of making sure they\u2019re keeping up to standards with Canada soccer.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut more importantly, we just currently launched in Nelson the Kootenay United Football Academy. \u201cThis allows anybody in the region to come and be trained by our professional staff. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why the UBCO program picked us is because they knew the work we\u2019d been doing on that specific academy \u2014 some of the players had asked for evaluations \u2014 they knew of the work we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Youth soccer development in Canada is at the forefront of sports conversations, especially in light of the recent World Cup, which Canada co-hosted. And university soccer in this country is a vital pathway for young players to take their game to a higher level.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniversity soccer in Canada is pushing in the right direction,\u201d Adams said, \u201cEvery kid across Canada that loves soccer; their first dream, of course, is to be a professional player, but the next dream is to secure a scholarship in a college or university. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m proud to say that the Kootenays now, specifically the Nelson area, we\u2019re seeing twos, threes and fours every year that are going on to different programs across the country.\u201d
KUFA was founded around the high quality soccer infrastructure already in place in Nelson. <\/p>\n
We identified that we needed to do something,\u201d Adams said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got coaches with the highest qualifications in world soccer to people who\u2019ve come in through the Canada soccer stream. So we really are pushing forward, and we wanted to share that with the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
The KUFA football club has players coming in from across southeast B.C. \u2014 from Cranbrook, Fernie, Invermere, Trail, Castlegar, and elsewhere in the Kootenays. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are a locally based organization; however, we have bigger ambitions for all those players,\u201d Adams said.
\u201cAnd all the associations are working together. We\u2019re finally coming to the table to say it\u2019s about these players, it\u2019s about providing opportunities. It\u2019s going to require a lot of commitment from those players that don\u2019t live in Nelson. But at the same time they\u2019re seeing the benefits of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
KUFA recently confirmed their player evaluation dates \u2014 at the moment there are almost 200 players from around the region who want to be evaluated by the academy. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt just shows you how much it really is booming,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n
Evaluations take place at the end of August in Nelson.<\/p>\n
As to the UBCO visit earlier in August, it stemmed from a visit this spring. The local Nelson soccer association had brought Dante Zanatta, Head Coach of the UBCO Men\u2019s Soccer Team, to Nelson in April, to do some coaching development workshops. He worked with players and coaches, and did a presentation to parents on what it takes to play at the university level. <\/p>\n
\u201cDante noticed there was something really special happening in Nelson and area,\u201d Adams said. <\/p>\n
At the end of the trip he asked Adams if they would be interested in him bringing the UBCO team in for a camp<\/p>\n
\u201cI would like to thank Dante for bringing his team along and giving our players the opportunity to compete, learn and challenge themselves. It was a fantastic experience for everyone involved, and we really appreciate the time, effort and support Dante put into making it happen. It\u2019s these opportunities that help our players grow both on and off the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of British Columbia Okanagan Men\u2019s Soccer team \u2014 the UBCO Heat \u2014 recently came to Nelson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853385,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,249267,561,82],"class_list":["post-853384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kootenay","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853384\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}