Juxtaposition was in full force in Ontario soccer circles Thursday.
In the space of about 30 minutes two press releases arrived. One, from the Toronto Lynx, celebrated the arrival of five foreign players to the local PDL side. Primarily playing in a development league, the a Lynx were expressing excitement over the fact they were taking five spots away from local products.
Canadian soccer the old.
The other press release came from Ontario League 1, the new standards based professional league that launches later this month.
That press release was to confirm that a former Premier League stand-out was coming to Canada. However, rather than coming to take a playing spot away from local talent while lending his name to a team to sell tickets, that player -- Newcastle fan favourite Nolberto Solano -- was coming to a small club in Toronto (Internacional de Toronto) to teach the game to a next generation of Canadian players.
Canadian soccer the (hopefully) new.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Today, he reiterated that desire at a press conference at the Ontario Soccer Association.
At least three times Solano mentioned that Canadian men's head coach Benito Floro was based in the city. The context of that was to illustrate that it would be an aspiration of his players to play for that national team. In most places on earth it would be a given that a player would aspire to that and that his manager would want to help him do that.
In Canada (the old), not so much. In Canada the old they'd be on ancestry.ca looking for national team to aspire to.
In Canada the old, Solano isn't being lured here.
Time will tell whether we are done with Canada the old, but between the launch of League 1 and the parallel launch of the LTPD-standards based youth league the OPDL (this weekend, in fact) it's becoming less and less crazy to think it possible.
For more info on League 1 visit: http://www.league1ontario.com