New Technical Development Vision

Canada Soccer unveiled its new unified technical development vision for soccer in the country and is called Canada Soccer Pathway – Your Goals. Our Game.

This is a direct implementation of the strategic priority set in the recent Strategic Plan Leading a Soccer Nation to become better on the world stage as well as on home turf.

The Canada Soccer Pathway is a coordinated identification and development of elite players through a structure that relies on several topics of understanding.

Those being regional training centres, scouting networks and professional clubs, and provides a continual and aligned pipeline for all Canadian National Teams.

The “Pathway” is formed by three (3) streams of play: recreational, competitive and EXCEL, the high performance arm of Canada’s soccer landscape.

It is understood that the recreational and competitive streams of play are largely delivered through Clubs and Schools, the EXCEL stream is designed to ensure more of Canada’s exceptional young players find their way into the top competitive area of the sport.

For Canada Soccer Men’s EXCEL Pathway, led by Canada Soccer Technical Director Tony Fonseca, the focus is put on developing a complete player and instilling a philosophy of play that will remain consistent throughout the athlete’s journey.

This starts from the moment he enters the program via one of Canada Soccer’s ID camps or by joining a pro-club academy, to the time he joins the professional ranks and potentially gets the opportunity to put on the maple leaf for Canada’s Men’s National Team. Obviously, for this to work there needs to be a high volume of talented players entering the program at an early stage, and so there will be a focus on talent identification and scouting to make this possible.

As Canada’s professional soccer structure expands, so will Canada Soccer Men’s EXCEL Pathway opportunities.

Currently driven by a national curriculum, annual Canada Soccer ID camps and youth National Teams projects, the interrelation with pro-cub academies and professional clubs will play an instrumental role in providing the best opportunities possible for our Canadian players.

The new approach adopted by Canada Soccer to unite and strengthen the ways we identify and develop the most promising young female athletes and help drive women’s soccer forward.

Built on developing players across four corners – physical, mental, technical/tactical, and social/emotional – it provides a clear and continuous pathway across the country.

Canada Soccer Women’s EXCEL Program features four classes that intertwine and feed the system for the Canadian Women’s National Team.

The Women’s Regional EXCEL Centres (licensed year-round program) that works through the Provincial/Territorial Member Associations and partners.

In addition to setting a standardized national curriculum for female players U-13 to U-18; the Women’s National EXCEL Program, a continuous six-year cycle bringing together U-14 to U-17 and U-18 to U-20 players having demonstrated the ability to meet the highest standards across the Regional EXCEL Centres.

EXCELeration and supplemental training for targeted athletes prior to having them join Women’s National Team activities; and a network of recommended schools that are recognized as being committed to the support and delivery of training at EXCEL program standards.

So one has to ask – does this program still entice the best player or is this program one that can only benefit the players whose Families have the funds to send them to these schools for further training and development.

I am hoping that it has taken this into account as I have seen far too many talented players quit various sports due to not having the funding to advance.

Thanks to Soccer Canada for the release.