The Moose Jaw Soccer Association program – part of the local organization’ affiliation with the famed Celtic FC soccer squad in Scotland – held their first tryout on Sunday afternoon at Sunningdale field, drawing around 30 players and offering coaches and organizers a first look at what they have.
And according to MJSA technical director Jordan Jeffery, the results were nothing but positive, from the try-out numbers right through to the calibre of play on the field.
“It was great to see such a huge turnout in such a short period of time,” Jeffery said. “We weren’t really sure what to expect, but I guess the awareness of the programs we’re trying to run and the partnership is a lot bigger than we realized to that point.”
The initial hope was around 14 or 15 players would take part, giving an initial gauge as to where they’d have to build in the future. Instead, plans are already taking shape for the program, which is now expected to feature a main Moose Jaw Celtic travelling team and a training team that could see players transfer between the two as necessary.
“It’s tough to get a good assessment of a player in one tryout, and this gives us some more time to look at players a little closer, get them ingrained in the philosophy of Moose Jaw and Celtic that we’re trying to get across to the players,” Jeffery said. “Once we see how they adapt to that, we’ll be in a situation to make some decisions.”
The key component of the two teams will be to foster intra-club competition much like one would see in European leagues, with main teams and feeder squads that transfer players up and down depending on skill and match fitness.
“Some of those guys might have been carrying injuries or not been as fit as they’d like to have been,” Jeffery explained. “So there will be plenty of spots between the two teams and we can create a competitive environment where players who are on the travel team will have to work hard to stay there, or they’ll drop into the training team instead and someone else will take their spot.”
The travel team will be made up of players in the 2003 to 2005 age group, who will form the first Moose Jaw Celtic crew that will take part in events on this side of the ocean prior to heading over the Glasgow. Much of that plan will rely on when COVID-19 restrictions are lifted, of course.
Once things are settled with the first selections, pre-program work will take place in October before beginning in earnest with the indoor season in November. A second tryout may be held at that time to further shore up the program.
Six to nine months from now, they could be Glasgow-bound.
“It’s awesome that we’re finally in a position to start something at least,” Jeffery said. “We had to scale back a few of the other programs we planned to run with while everyone adjusts and we wait for more information with regards to the safety. But to have something Celtic affiliated while we’re waiting to go back to the pre-pandemic world, we’re just excited to get something going with the boys here.”
