

Posted by

Steve Bottjer ,

February 20, 2014 Email

Steve Bottjer

On Twitter:

@BottjerRNO

While Toronto FC’s offseason acquisitions of a number of veteran players might making playing time hard to come by for the squad’s youngest players, ultimately the ability to train with and learn from players such as Julio Cesar, Dwayne De Rosario, Jermaine Defoe and Michael Bradley will certainly be a boon for the club’s still developing youngsters.



In terms of Toronto’s goalkeeping corps, TFC Academy graduate Quillan Roberts might be the player who has the most to gain from being exposed to a truly world class keeper such as Julio Cesar on a daily basis.



With that in mind, Roberts does not hide the fact that he is excited about the Brazilian’s arrival.



“Being a young keeper, it is always nice to have these types of experiences,” Roberts told RedNation Online. “I may not experience that type of thing again in my life, so having him here will be a great experience for me.”



In terms of TFC’s offseason overhaul, Roberts was also quick to admit that having new players who have significant experience at both the club and countries levels can only help him and the other young players on the roster.



“It is always nice to have top experienced players to show us the right direction and to keep our heads on and to show us little tidbits of the game that we might not have experienced ourselves yet,” the Brampton, Ontario native said. “They have been through it all before, so they make it a little bit easier for us to go through it.”



Upon signing his first professional contract with Toronto, young striker Jordan Hamilton recently admitted that the opportunity to train and play with Dwayne De Rosario was one of the motivating factors in his decision to choose going pro versus attending college in the United States. In Roberts estimation, the opportunity to play with one of the greatest Canadian players of all time is something that can only be good for the young Canadians on TFC’s roster.



“I think for me it is a bit different (from Jordan) because I am a keeper,” Roberts explained. “However, he is an idol in Canadian eyes and he is always someone you look up to playing this game. It is nice to having him back here and I’m looking forward to having him back here.”



Of course, with several Canadian national teams at different age levels now drawing significantly from the three Canadian MLS clubs and their academy programs, ongoing development for young talents such as Roberts isn’t limited to training and matches with their club teams.



Fellow homegrown player Manny Aparicio is now immersed in his first senior TFC team training camp just weeks after earning his first call-up to the Canadian Men’s National Team for its January training camp under Head Coach Benito Floro.



According to Aparicio, that camp was both an inspiring and educational experience.



“It was a great experience and a great two weeks,” Aparicio said. “It is great to have a coach like Benito – an ex-coach from Real Madrid – calling us up and looking at the youth players. Usually you would expect him to stay with the team that he has.”



“Benito is trying to get the team to play with a new philosophy, to play out of the back and change how Canadian soccer was before,” Aparicio explained. “He kind of brought me back to how I used to play in Argentina. Even if you are in the most troubled place on the field, he wants you to just try to play. It is going to take a while he said, but for now we just have to try to play.”



While Floro’s ultimate goal is to get the Canadian national team back to the World Cup, his pathway to achieving that is focused on developing Canada’s young talent and immersing them in his system and style of play and that can only be a good thing for the development of players like Aparicio, Roberts and others of their generation.



“First, we are looking at the Olympics and the Gold Cup,” Aparicio said. “It is a big change for Canadian soccer. We all just have to adapt to it and learn to play Benito’s way and not our way, the way we all grew up playing. I think it will take us a long way.”