Posted by

Aaron Nielsen ,

May 2, 2016 Email

Aaron Nielsen



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@ENBSports

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The last week of April and first weekend of May sees the start of League One Ontario’s (L1O) third season - the highest domestic level of soccer in Ontario. Like elsewhere in Canada and United States, L1O continues to grow with the expansion of five new men's clubs this year, bringing the total to 16 clubs, while the league also has nine women's teams with Darby FC the only club not also playing a men's team. This expansion means more areas of Southern Ontario are represented including Aurora, North Mississauga (who become a natural rival to fellow Mississauga side Sigma FC) and FC London, who have a strong background in PDL, inducing past champions in that league. The league also includes two Toronto-based sides North Toronto Nitros, who will be playing in downtown Toronto at Varsity Stadium, and Toronto Skillz FC who are based in Scarborough. Toronto’s other side Sanjaxx Lions, will play out of Monarch Park this season and will play both a women's and men's team. The side has moved from North York and are hoping to be more competitive after struggling in both leagues last season. Toronto suburbs continue to be the hotbed of Ontario soccer with traditional powers Woodbridge, Vaughan, and Sigma FC finishing in the top four last season behind Oakville Blue Devils, who won the title in their inaugural season. Although anyone who follows Ontario youth soccer knows Oakville have always been a strong soccer club. In 2015 Oakville were led by Filipe Vilela, who tied for league lead in goals with 20, although defenders Al James, Nick Muth, Eric Crawford and midfielder Taylor McNamara also had a strong campaign. Oakville would go on and beat CS Mont-Royal Outremont in Quebec PLSQ to win the Inter-Provincial Cup 5-3 on aggregate. Oakville brings in two ex-TFC Academy players this year in Rahim Thorpe and Tariq Robertson as they look to retain their title. Surprisingly, in fifth place last season was Toronto FC Academy after dominating the inaugural season in 2014. Part of the reason for this is TFC Academy spread out its talent more in 2015 with 2014 L1O players such as Mo Babouli, Lucca Uccello and Chris Mannella graduating to Toronto FC II. Babouli is now playing games with Toronto FC in MLS, while TFC also added a PDL team making the League One Ontario their "C" team in their academy ranks. This doesn't mean they lack talent, with Liam Fraser graduating, while other interesting players include Cyrus Rollocks, Nicholas Osorio, and I'm looking forward to seeing Ayo Akinola play games with the club this season. Not only has League One Ontario proved to be competitive, but the amount of talent is significant as well, including young and upcoming players for the Canadian National Team. Richie Laryea looked strong for Sigma last season before a great season with Akron and being drafted by Orlando in MLS. Sigma will have potential MLS picks this year in Kwame Awuah, Chris Nanco, Alex Halis, whilel Marcel Zajac, now at Akron, is looking to follow in those footsteps. Vaughan had Austin Ricci, Kamal Miller and Duwayne Ewart impressing in 2015, while players to watch in 2016 include Liam McQueenie, Mario Kovaecevic and Munir Saleh. Woodbridge also looks to be competitive again and the player to watch this season will be Dylan Carreiro who returns after time in both England and Scotland. FC London should also challenge these top five clubs for the Championship this season with their soccer connections across NCAA and in Europe. London has also been one of the top cities regarding amateur soccer, which will give FC London a great core of players to recruit from. With their experience in the league, Durham United, Windsor Stars and Kingston Clippers should also be competitive as all made positive improvements during the 2015 season. Most of Durham United's core players are returning from a side that finished 11-8-3 last season. Windsor has the Pio brothers, Michael and Noah, as well as Stephen Ademolu. While Kingston have a more senior team led by Ryan Mccurdy, who scored eleven goals last seasons. The league has lost ANB Futbol, who decided not to run a L1O team this season, with 16 year old breakout star Adonijah Reid, who scored 20 goals last season, currently on trial with Dynamo Zagreb in Croatia. On the women's side, expect last year’s Champions Durham United to be equally as strong as they try to hold off Vaughan and Woodbridge for the title. Last season Durham had the striking power of Alexandria Lamontagne, Hollie Babut and Geneva Winterink, who combined 41 goals, while Jessica Lisi of Woodbridge was the league’s leading scorer with 21 goals in 18 games. Vaughan also has Canadian U20 National Team player Rylee Foster in net. New clubs FC London, Aurora United and Darby FC, who is managed by former OSA Technical Director Mirco Schroff, should also be competitive. My local team is the North Toronto Nitros, who I hope to attend all home games at the geographically friendly Varsity Stadium. On the field I'm not sure what to expect from this expansion team, although after reading Devon Rowcliffe’s great article - on his experience in Vancouver and how he is trying to change that I'm excited by my new club and might try to start the club's own NTN Supporters Group. Feel free in joining me and hopefully the same enthusiasm can be felt across the league, especially with new information that League One Ontario teams could be joining the Voyageurs Cup. I will definitely be doing work for both RedNation Online and ProspectXI about the league, helping identify talent and hopefully raising the profile of the league, but also allow players in the league to reach their soccer goals. I would also suggest people to visit the new League One Ontario website, which has great additional information about the league including each teams schedule. Aaron Neilsen is a co-founder of Prospect XI (Prospect Eleven), a scouting network and online magazine dedicated to tracking/highlighting young players that refer to as "prospects" as well as their development pathways both within North America and worldwide. Follow PXI via www.prospectxi.com or on twitter @ProspectXI.