Five Ottawa South United Force Academy/Centre of Excellence players have reached the final selection phase for the Eastern Canadian Danone Nations Cup team. Isabella Hanisch, Veronika Shaw, Olivia Cooke, Matteo de Briene and Bryan Sun will try to follow in the footsteps of Mollie Eriksson and David Chung – OSU players who competed for Canada in last year’s Danone tournament in Poland.
“They were a big inspiration,” highlights OSU club head coach Paul Harris. “That success made everybody excited and wanted to go and do that this year.”
The five OSU athletes already find themselves in exclusive company. They were chosen from over 8,000 players who tried out at sites across the country to go to Toronto for the final selection camp in April. Less than 160 candidates remain for spaces on the Canadian East and West teams, who will then play off to determine which side will compete for Canada in London, England later this year at the world’s largest international youth soccer tournament for 11- and 12-year-olds.
The first tryouts were a bit of a nerve-racking experience, signals Cooke, who quickly realized the importance of her session in Montreal when she was told only five out of 130 players would advance.
“There’s so many good people, and you have to do really well to get picked,” underlines the Nepean Hotspurs product. “I felt really proud of myself.”
Hanisch, who also tried out in Montreal, was in disbelief at the outset that she’d make the next step and go to Toronto. “Oh my God,” she remembers saying, “Is this real?”
Shaw, on the other hand, was confident throughout the process and recalls thinking, “Oh yes, I’m going to Toronto,” right from the start of her session in Toronto.
There wasn’t quite the same level of drama for Sun and de Briene at their tryouts in Kingston.
“(The coach) told me I’d already made it,” recalls Sun, an Ottawa Fury youth program product. “I’m excited. I think it will be a really good experience. It’s the best of the best in Ontario. It will be really fun.”
The Toronto camp will include a variety of drills to assess the players’ skills, but the part the young players are anticipating most is playing the games against top competition.
“Meeting new people and playing soccer with them, because I love soccer,” signals Shaw of what she’s looking forward to most. “You have to try your best and stay focused, but the main part is to have fun.”