Time will tell whether or not the 76 minutes of field time that Cloe Lacasse has garnered through the first two Canada games at the FIFA Women’s World Cup of Soccer (it’s a very good bet she will receive more) will lead to any kind of bump in the interest in the sport in her hometown.
Her story is now well documented.
Though highly touted on a local level given her involvement with coach Frank Malvaso and a Sudbury Canadians' age bracket that featured a number of very talented young women – not to mention leading the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères to the only two OFSAA Girls’ Soccer crowns in school history – the truth is that Lacasse was receiving only mild interest on a provincial level through much of her youth.
Even as she continued to prove naysayers wrong during an illustrious career with the Iowa Hawkeyes of the NCAA, constantly dispelling the notion that she was largely an ultra-talented multi-sport athlete who happened to like soccer, she did so as Soccer Canada somehow remained oblivious to her skill set.
Given the star power that she earned while potting goal after goal with Benfica in Portugal, leading to her recent signing with Arsenal, a top ten club team in the world, it’s easy to forget that Lacasse toiled largely in the shadows while launching her professional career in Iceland, hardly the place one goes to immediately springboard their way to global prominence.
Make no mistake – Cloe Lacasse beat the odds in persevering her way to the opportunity that the entire Sudbury community is now celebrating with her.
And while it’s unlikely that any current member of the GSSC (Greater Sudbury Soccer Club) is on the verge of following in her footsteps any time soon, the fact is that one and all absolutely have reason to dream, understanding that Lacasse also cut her teeth looking to put northern Ontario on equal footing with the behemoth that is soccer in the southern parts of the province (and the GTA, more specifically).
“We’re obviously doing quite well,” noted GSSC Impact U21 Women’s head coach Connor Vande Weghe, his team sitting third in the eight deep Central Region U21 division of the OWSL with a record of 5-2-2. “Third place in the league shows that you can mix in half the team going to those programs (Laurentian and Cambrian) with the 2005 (high-school) age group and that we are more than capable of competing for second place with Barrie and Woodbridge.”
Trailing Barrie by seven points but with a game in hand, the Impact will visit the Spirit on Sunday after facing North York FC a day earlier. “Barrie, at that age group, is one of the top non-OPDL (Ontario Player Development League) teams in the province,” noted Vande Weghe.
“In terms of a game plan, it’s up to us to dictate the game. That’s one of our weaker points. We are good at absorbing the style of play of an opponent and then finding a way to break them down, but really being able to dictate the play would be a good start against a team like Barrie.”
“It is difficult to do because Barrie is very well organized, they press well and they are very good at winning the ball back in the midfield, which makes it tough for us to control the ball and dictate the speed of the game.”
That kind of game plan is exactly what has Impact U17 boys head coach Evan Phillips so excited – just the advancement in terms of the bigger picture knowledge that comes with playing the Beautiful Game at a reasonably high level for any sustained length of time at all.
“A big focus this year has really been on having a more in-depth understanding of the game, tactically,” said the former goalkeeper who also doubles as the head coach of the Cambrian women’s team. “Maturity has allowed them to learn a bit more, to develop a little bit more and handle more responsibility as a group – and as individuals as well.”
Truth is that the added maturity gets demonstrated in a whole variety of fashions.
“Over the last year, we’ve been able to transition to multiple different styles of play, depending on what the team we are playing against are able to do,” said Phillips. “The middle of our team – center forwards, center mids, attacking mids, centerbacks – are all able to complement each other and now we can tilt the field in our favour.”
“A few years ago, we could only play one certain way and we had to play our best to have a chance to win. Now, when things haven’t gone our way, we’ve been able to adjust and the kids have been able to respond to some adversity. I am not sure two years ago that we would have done that.”
The U17 boys will enjoy a break in their TOSL schedule as they prepare for the Champions Showcase in Ottawa on the August long weekend.
The 2023 edition of the U17 Impact boys team features: Richard Lopez, Zach Maybee, Atom Thususka, Roy Solarin, Sylas Corbiere, Jonas Petroski, Christian Thamby, Sam Oduwole, Adam Bilgasem, Matthew Dzivy, Cedric Belgic, Anthony Desaro, Rocko Purpura, Max Aziz, Mathias Sieman, Linden Devries, Nour Alzahran, Chad Tullio, Graham Binks, Liam Binks and Nikola Tuttle.
The Impact U14 Girls are another team getting ready for a huge game, hosting the Burlington Force Academy in an Ontario Cup quarter-final match-up this coming Saturday at 1:00 p.m. at the Delki Dozzi Sports Complex. The team is undefeated (7-0-0) in league play but are now crossing into adversaries from various other leagues in the province.
The Impact U18 Boys also remained unbeaten, sporting a record of 8-0-2 after doubling Oshawa Turul last weekend 4-2 on a pair of two goal efforts from Maliq Olanrewaju and Nathan Cranston. The Impact top the standings with 26 points but Power FC (6-0-2) are well within striking distance, with the two set to meet on August 12th.
Coach Doug Rosener and the Impact U16 Girls swept a pair of games from CTSA last weekend, winning the opener 2-1 on goals from Maia Hammell and Olivia Ferguson-Soules and blanking the visitors 3-0 as strikes from Kynlee Cresswell (2) and Kaylee Vaillancourt combined with a clean sheet from Isabelle Roy to complete their six-point day.
The Impact U14 Boys dropped their first outing of the summer, a 4-3 decision to North Scarborough SC as Gage Mantha, Jared Ferguson-Whitely and Landen Lake-Rego found the back of the net for the locals.
It was a similar fate for the U13 Boys, beaten 3-2 by EY Atletico, though this was the second loss for the Sudbury crew (6-2-0). Angelo Kalonji accounted for all of the offense for the Impact and was rewarded with his first appearance in the OPDL as the GSSC and Vaughan SC enjoy the benefits of an affiliation partnership.
It’s just one more step in allowing young local athletes, like Cloe Lacasse, for instance, to pursue their dreams.
