Red Deer U11 boys soccer team wins Calgary Cup in first ever season

Nyirenda and the club decided to make the team competitive to build player confidence. However, a lot of work needed to be done.

“There were some kids that I picked up along the way that literally couldn’t kick a soccer ball, let alone control it,” he said. “Some hadn’t played competitive sports in two years; some were just getting into the sport.”

So Nyirenda got to work. He first individualized each player’s training. He found their strengths and advised them to work on their weaknesses. He then focused on accuracy in proper touches and passes. Finally, he rearranged player positions to find the right fit.

He turned a team of eight into 14, recruiting kids from other programs at The Dome, word of mouth with parents and even with poaching bright players from other sports, like hockey and football, transferring their skills to soccer.

They made it to their first competitive match as a team in Edmonton this June where Nyirenda says they got “demolished”, losing 14-1.

In true team spirit, they did not quit. A few matches later, the head coach says the team was not playing better but playing harder.

To maintain motivation, he shared his own experiences as a young athlete. Originally from Ontario, he moved to Edmonton to play competitively in high school. His underdog team had lost 8-0 before playoffs one year, but carried forward with hard work and a positive attitude, quickly improving throughout their season.

“All I kept saying was ‘keep believing in your ability’. If you work hard, if you hustle, if you work together as a team, the result will come,” he said to the kids.

As the central Alberta boys made their way to the Calgary tournament, Nyirenda says the team was scared but ready, ultimately winning the cup.

“We ended up being one of the top teams because we played harder, we played better and the hunger was just already there from that first game that they lost in Edmonton. I made sure I always reminded them ‘did that feel good?’ and they’d always say ‘no, we never want to be on that losing end like that’,” he said.

He says in his eight years of teaching, currently as assistant head coach to the Olds College Broncos, this moment was the proudest in his career. He even believes six of the players have the potential to make it to the pro level someday.

“One of the guys that came to our team, he had never played the sport before but towards the end of the season, he became one of our best defenders, one of our best players,” he said.

Noah Welch, President of The Dome and Director at Large for the soccer club, says multiple factors brought the team to success.

“They’re a really good group of boys that were coachable, that love the game of soccer, want to get better and really just did everything that the coaches asked them to do,” he said. “[To] compete against cities that have a lot of teams and lot more numbers and then to win is pretty impressive.”

Himself a former pro hockey player for 14 years, Welch believes the culture and system created by the head coach were geared towards player development.

Welch says he watched the boys practice in age appropriate and fun ways like pulling sleds up and down the turf for physical fitness, alongside learning in a classroom setting about how to deal with failure and making mistakes in a sport, a course offered at The Dome.

Welch believes that encouraging the sport in central Alberta will allow kids the opportunity to compete at home rather than having to travel to major cities, as well as offer families a more affordable sport in comparison to others like hockey which have increased in financial barriers.

by Alessia Proietti

Red Deer U11 boys soccer team wins Calgary Cup in first ever season

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