J4K Owner/Director Travels to France and Italy this March Break (2011)

J4K owner Riccardo Greco travelled to France and Italy this March Break with goalkeeper Darrin Macleod of Waterloo, on to create new and exciting opportunities for our Canadian keepers. While in France and Italy Darrin trained with 2 or 3 European goalkeeper coaches while on trial games or training sessions. Darrin's best opportunity came up while he was on trial at Albino Leffi in the Seria B of Italian Soccer. Darrin did very well on his trial at Albino Fc and peaked the interest of the Italian Club, in the end we returned to Canada with those experiences because there is one thing standing in the way of Canadian players getting the chance to prove themselves in Europe and that's an EU Passport. There are certain requirements that are not negotiable these days and that is that a goalkeeper needs to be at least 6ft, You must have a valid EU passport, You must be able to withstand the home sickness which affects so many players, and you don't hear about it, Passion for the game you can't lie about it because a trained eye sees passion in the players performance on the field. Darrin had everything minus the passport, he returned to Canada with a purpose and that was to get to Europe via the University Scholarship Route, in the meantime he has been training with Toronto FC Academy and doing well.

I will be travelling back to Italy this year to renew our ties in Italy and France for the up and coming goalkeepers that continue to amaze us at Just4keepers Canada. I remain committed to the notion that if our players are going to have a fighting chance at one day playing in a World Cup game for Canada then we have to move more players out of Canada at an earlier age. In Europe players as young as 13 are already being groomed for Professional entry at 17 and 18 years of age. Two of my senior goalkeepers are presently in Europe and making their way to Professional Contracts Max Luburic is presently in talks with NK Zagreb in Croatia and Lucas Birnstingl is presently on trial at Darlington Fc where he has just arrived from being at Kilmarnock Fc for the last 3 weeks in preparation for what could be a busy winter in goalkeeper transfers in the UK.