By Victoria Klassen
Led by Ottawa native Samuel Charron’s 15 goals in 6 games, Canada’s para-soccer team qualified for the 2017 World Championships in Argentina.
The 18-year-old was a dominant force at the July 29-Aug. 6 Qualification Tournament in Denmark, becoming not only the youngest player in Canadian Soccer Association history to score a hat trick, but the first ever to score three goals in three consecutive games.
“Just to get one hat trick blew my mind a little bit,” recalls Charron, who usually dresses as a defender for his Cumberland Cobras Ontario Youth Soccer League team. “But then to get three in a row, I was kind of speechless. Then to see the record I just broke – it caught me by surprise, because I didn’t realize there was a record for that.
“But I was scoring goals for my team – that was most important.”
Charron began playing soccer at age 4, eventually making his way into the competitive ranks with the Gloucester Hornets and later the Cobras.
“My parents wanted me to get into the sport. Because of my disability, soccer was pretty much the only sport I could go into,” explains Charron, who was born with a mild form of cerebral palsy.
The seven-a-side para soccer team is comprised of players who have cerebral palsy, or who’ve had a brain injury or stroke. Charron says he does not see much of a difference between para and able-bodied soccer.
“The rules are different, but it’s still soccer,” notes the first-year University of Ottawa student who’s interested in joining the school’s men’s club team. “We don’t have offsides, we’re allowed to throw the ball differently, but soccer is soccer. The main goal is to score more goals than your opponent and not let any goals in.”
Charron will study international business at uOttawa, inspired by his experiences with Team Canada.
“With this soccer team it’s shown me that I like to travel,” signals the Béatrice-Desloges high school grad. “That’s why I took international business – to see how the world works outside of Canada, and maybe live in a different country or work in a different country to see different cultures.”
As much as he loves traveling, having a home crowd behind him at last summer’s Parapan Am Games in Toronto was a “once-in-a-lifetime experience,” notes Charron, who first rose to his offensive potential at the event to finish second in tournament scoring.
“I finally got the monkey off my back,” reflects the Toronto 2015 4th-place finisher. “In past tournaments, I would only score one goal in the tournament and then I would disappear for the rest of the games. It was nice to see that I finally broke that curse that I’d put on myself somehow.
“Then to see in Denmark all my goals, it gives me more confidence to play.”
In reaching the quarter-final round in Denmark, the 7th-place Canadians qualified for next year’s 16-team World Championships. Canada missed out on the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, but the young talent who wore the captain’s armband for his team in Denmark is intent on making it to the big show one day.
“Our team is getting better and better in years to come,” Charron underlines. “For Argentina, we’ll put the best team we’ve had on the field, and I can’t wait to show the countries that went to Rio that we’re here and we’re knocking at the door — we’re ready to play.”