MSA

Lucania FC - A tradition of excellence

When it comes to soccer in Manitoba, Lucania FC are the gold standard. With 12 provincial championships in the last 22 years, they’ve established themselves as the team to beat in this province. According to president and general manager Mike Nardiello, winning for Lucania is just a way of life.

As a club, Lucania take the pitch with a singular goal for every single season and every single match, they aim to win everything they play in. For them, anything less is just not good enough.

“We want to win nationals every year. That’s our biggest goal every year when we first start training,” said Nardiello, who went on to outline how he wants winning to be an important thing in the lives of every single player he recruits.

The assembly line of players obsessed with winning has lead to Lucania being very successful down the years. That streak continued this season as the club lost just one game all season in league play.

From there, Lucania went to provincials as one of the big favourites. Their solid play through the tournament lead to them reaching the final against archrivals Sons of Italy. The game was one fit to grace any tournament in the world and an instant classic in Manitoba soccer.

Lucania raced out to a dominating 3 nil lead, before allowing Sons of Italy to mount an incredible comeback. They scored three consecutive goals, all from set plays, to tie the game up and send it into extra time. With the crowd in a frenzy, Lucania were able to steady themselves and got a dramatic winner from striker Kenny Sacramento to take the provincial crown yet again.

Nardiello said he was proud of his team, even if it was hard to watch at times.

“We lost three starting players to injuries in that game. Particularly two players that we couldn’t afford to lose in the middle of the park and we kind of stopped playing our game. We didn’t keep the ball and they played desperate. It was great that we could pull it out though,” he said.

Though the win was a sweet cap to a great season, the provincials are not enough for Nardiello or his players. They’ve already started training for nationals, which start in early October.

Although they’ve been given a tough group against top teams from BC, Alberta and Ontario, Nardiello said the goal that has shaped Lucania forever remains in tact.

“The ultimate goal is to win. We feel we’re good enough to beat any team that comes on the pitch against us,” he said.

“When you go to nationals, you need a break here and there though, we hope some go our way,” he added.

While he is happy with his own team, Nardiello said there was room for improvement in terms of soccer in Manitoba. He said the Manitoba Major Soccer League was too watered down, as there are well over 100 teams but only 3 or 4 who legitimately contend for titles.

He said that if the sport wanted to grow here, it had to start with coaching.

“It always starts with coaching, we need better development of coaches at the youth level.”

Nardiello ended with praise for the MSA, but a cautionary word that the work was far from over.

“The MSA have done some great work over the last five or six years. We need more though, it needs to keep growing.”

For more information on Lucania FC, check out this article on the Canadian Soccer Association website:

http://www.canadasoccer.com/nationals/viewArtical.asp?Press_ID=4440

You can also visit the club website at:

http://www.leaguelineup.com/welcome.asp?url=lucaniafc

The first webisode is here

Hey guys,

Here's the first of our MSA blog webisodes. As I mentioned earlier in the week, this one focuses on the Provincial Finals. The best of the best in Manitoba, head to head.

Please keep in mind that I am new at this and this is a first attempt. It's not perfect, but I hope you enjoy it! Comments are totally welcome and don't forget to check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

Welcome Aboard

The outdoor soccer season may be coming to a close, but things are just getting started here on the MSA Blog.

Now that the blog is officially linked to the MSA website traffic on the blog is picking up and many of you are new followers. I just wanted to take this chance to fill you in on what’s coming up here on the MSA Blog and what we can look forward to as a soccer community moving forward.

Within the next day or so, our first video webisode will be posted. The webisode will focus on the Provincial Championships, particularly the finals which were held on August 28^th at the Soccer Complex. The event was a massive success and I hope the webisode can do justice to what a great day it was, despite the rain. It’s got some great interview footage with Hector Vergara and Braden Hidalgo Massi from the U18 champions Phoenix.

The webisodes will be coming thick and fast through the fall. Keep an eye out for a look at the Provincial Program tryouts, a sneak peek into the National Training Centre program right here in Winnipeg and also get to know how the MSA works and the opportunities they can provide you.

I’ve also lined up some great stories for you guys to check out. We’ll soon be posting a look at senior provincial champs Lucania FC as they prepare for Nationals and we’ll be showing the girls some love as we look at WSA North Stars struggles to get their team in shape after losing so many of their key players.

All that plus profiles of key soccer community members, news on MSA events and contests and more are all in store as we kick things up a notch on the MSA Blog!

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions on what you want to see on the blog, we’re hear to serve the soccer community and provide them with what they want. Drop us a line, we’d love to hear from you.

One last thing, don’t forget to join the Manitoba Soccer Association group on Facebook.

You can also follow us on twitter at manitobasoccer.

Now get out there and play some soccer!