To be the best you have to play the best.
It is a sports cliché that is all too familiar with Taber youngster Eric Lister as he pursues his passion for soccer. The 17-year-old has been playing the sport since he was five at the highest levels southern Alberta has to offer.
But to take that next step, he is stepping across the ocean to Brazil to pursue his dream of perhaps playing the sport professionally one day.
“Anyone can join, it’s sort of like boarding schools, you take Portuguese lessons and you train with coaches and play against some of the best players in the world,” said Lister. “You get to see what the top level is for your age and see how you stack up.”
Lister leaves Aug. 10 for a month and will return Sept. 11 to play for youth club Fluminense. Lister came across the Web site for EduKick Incorporated which offers international soccer boarding schools and international football opportunities for youth from 10 to 17 years old.
Lister was searching for something more than what could be afforded him in southern Alberta for his love of soccer.
“They have all these things in the world. They have Spain, Italy, England, Greece, they have tons of places you can go. I played up in Lethbridge with the Tier I team last year, but coming down to this season, I thought it really wasn’t worth it for the amount of money you paid,” said Lister.
“We started looking at camps I could go to and something that would benefit me more. One day I want to be a professional player. It looks like one heck of an experience.”
To pursue opportunities professionally, North Americans pretty much have to go international in their soccer pursuits where passion for the sport is 10-fold compared to Canada and the United States.
“There is not much (opportunity in North America). Once you get past 16, 17 year sold getting out of school, if you want to keep playing soccer there is not a lot of opportunity. If you want to become professional, your only opportunity in North America is if you go to a U.S. college and get drafted into the MLS,” said Lister. “You go to a play like England, you can leave school and go to a district league, an amateur league and then go into semi-professional and professional leagues. It’s not taken as seriously around here. Going to Brazil, people absolutely love it down there.”
Lister is quite serious about his soccer pursuits. When he is not in game play, you can often see him kicking the ball around his house or local soccer pitch every day to keep his skills honed as a winger. Lister was glued to his television set for every game he was able to watch during the recent World Cup in which Spain eventually proved victorious over the Netherlands in extra time.
“It has always been around me since I was young. I’ve grown up with it and I watch these videos of all my favourite players and you see in other countries how seriously they take it. I’ve been so immersed in it and I’ve grown to love it,” said Lister. “I’m super excited and it’s coming up really fast. We are going to be playing against some teams out there that are some of the best players coming from Brazil. I’m just going to go down there, hopefully compete against them and see how I stack up against them. I’ll take as many notes as I can, come back and train hard and one day hopefully play against them one day (professionally). My ultimate goal is to one day lead Canada's national team to the World Cup finals. They've only been once in 1986 so I'm hoping to change that in the future.”