By Ottawa Sportspage, For St. Anthony Futuro Soccer
On the path to realize his dream of wearing red for Team Ontario and Team Canada, 2003-born Futuro player Nicolas Padilla has been hard at work down in Toronto in recent months with the Ontario Soccer Provincial Program.
As a selected member of Team Ontario’s Provincial Project, Nicolas travels to Ontario Soccer headquarters in Vaughan one weekend each month in January, February, March for training with the best U15 boys in the province.
He is seeking a place among the final 22 players from across the province who will continue to train as members of the Provincial Team leading up to an Inter-Provincial Competition the last weekend of April, where Canada Soccer’s National Team Staff will identify players for their National Excel Programs.
Nicolas has also been playing with his St. Anthony Futuro teammates in the Coliseum League during the winter. His squad is in 1st place with a 12-1 record and has outscored opponents by a combined 120-41 mark.
“It’s really great to see our players getting recognized for this kind of program,” highlights St. Anthony Technical Director Sanjeev Parmar. “Nico is another great example of the type of high-level opportunities we want our players to strive for and achieve. We’re very pleased with his progress and wish him all the best.”
St. Anthony ’05s reach Ontario Indoor Cup semis
The Futuro 2005 boys also earned their stripes against the best in the province this past month.
Competing on the road in the championship round of the Ontario Indoor Cup U15 boys’ event in Vaughan, the St. Anthony troops went undefeated in the group stage, knocking off Toronto Dutch Connections 4-2, tying Glen Shields 3-3, and blasting North Mississauga 7-2 to setup a competitive semi-final with Bolton, which ended 4-3 in favour of the Ontario Soccer headquarters neighbours.
Parmar a model for Canadian soccer
Our club Technical Director Sanjeev Parmar was also down in Toronto in February, getting recognized by Canada Soccer Director of Development Jason Devos for his outstanding work in developing players.
Sanjeev was invited to participate in a day of filming in Toronto to help produce a video series for grassroots coaches across Canada.
Sanjeev also received praise from a high-achieving student of his, former NCAA player Vanessa Gilles, who is now playing professionally. Here was a recent post from Vanessa:
“Thank you to Sanjeev and all the coaches who have welcomed me and pushed me for the past 6 years! Sanjeev was one of the few coaches who took me in when I first started playing football in high school and has supported me ever since.
”Although Sanjeev is one of the busiest people I know, he always made time to help train us whenever we asked with the same passion and intensity he brings to every one of his training session.
“Not only have I become a stronger player both mentally and physically, but the technical part of my game changed dramatically. Being able to get so many touches on the ball everyday with Sanjeev’s creative drills has helped me get to where I am today.
”I just finished four years playing at the University of Cincinnati, a division 1 school in the States and am currently playing professional football for Apollon FC in Cyprus!
“I couldn’t have accomplished any of my goals without Parmar’s support throughout the years and am very grateful for the endless support!”
—Vanessa Gilles
More high-level coaching coming to camp
St. Anthony Futuro will welcome Ottawa Fury FC assistant coach Jed Davies to lead a week-long camp over March Break. See our website for full details.
Futuro ’03 standouts Nico Padilla & Devyn Viegas.
Great issue! Lots of amazing athletic opportunities and athletic accomplishments to be celebrated in all of the articles. Awesome.