Henry Thanks Academy Coaches
It is still sinking in for Doneil Henry. The 17-year-old is now a professional soccer player, after becoming the first Academy member to make the step up to Toronto FC’s first team.
Toronto Prepares For Home Opener
TORONTO -- Toronto FC’s players trained on the new grass pitch at BMO Field for the first time on Tuesday morning as Preki continues to prepare his side for the home opener against Philadelphia Union on Thursday night (kick off 7:00 p.m. live in HD on GOLTV Canada).
“It is nice to be on the grass,” said Preki following this morning’s training session. “Obviously we haven’t been on grass for a while and I think it is going to help the players, especially their bodies. Sometimes I felt because we have been working very hard on turf throughout the week, their bodies get sore and tired, but we don’t want to use that as an excuse. It is a beautiful day and we had a good training session, so I think we are ready.”
“The game is supposed to be played on grass so it is great to have it here. It is going to help cut down on injures and we are looking forward to moving to grass for the whole week for training and that is also something we are working on.”
Toronto’s two new signings Adrian Cann and Maxim Usanov trained with the team on Tuesday and Preki admits he may make changes to the line-up for the clash with the expansion team. “There might be some changes. We are looking at a few things but we are not going to make changes just because we lost. I thought there were a lot of positives in the first half in New England. It was 15 minutes of disaster in the second half that cost us the game. There are a lot of good things to build on and hopefully we can put a good 90 minutes together.”
Henry praised Toronto FC’S Academy and the coaching staff for helping him achieve his goal. “I want to thank Stuart Neely and Jason Bent and the rest of the Academy coaches for always being there and pushing me to become the player I am today.”
“I think the Academy is the best soccer based program in Canada. It has helped me because it is competitive training every day and that has helped build my performance. We all want to make it to the first team and everyone trains hard every day to try and achieve that goal.”
“I always said I wanted to become a professional footballer and I stuck with that from day one and was committed to the training. I knew I had to work hard and the chance to become a pro was my motivation.”
“When you become part of the squad at TFC and you are so close to the professionals you hope that one day you can become one of them. That was my goal all along.”
Henry has been training with the first team regularly for the last few weeks and feels he has already benefitted greatly from the experience. “Being around the first team this year has helped to build my professionalism. The game is a lot quicker and the demand is a lot higher. Passing has to be firm and well struck. The standards are a lot higher.”
“I have good leaders around me with Nana Attakora and Adrian Cann. We are there to fight for spots, but the help me and guide me and make me comfortable.”
Discuss this with Luke on Twitter