In the third installment of initiatives between Canada Soccer and League1 Ontario, a coaching education day with Canada Soccer Technical Director Tony Fonseca was held Friday at Pickering Soccer Centre. 

With a group of OPDL coaches on hand as well, the day's program featured on-field and classroom components, with Fonseca providing a window into the development methodology used at the national level.

"There are certain tactical issues and principles of play that are very central to what we do at the national level, and we want to share those ideas with the League1 coaches," said Fonseca.

"It's critical that we have events where we can interact with more people," he continued.

"We lack opportunities in this country to get together, debrief, and share developmental ideas. At the elite level it begins to deteriorate a bit and having events with the likes of League1 help tremendously. The elite players need to feel helped by us, and we hope these events will help enormously to realize they are not overlooked, and for us to bridge the gap."

Following on the heels of two 2015 joint-events between League1 and the Canada Soccer, Fonseca's clinic built off the August Canada Soccer U20/ League1 ID camp with Rob Gale, and an October coach education event with Canadian Women's national head coach, John Herdman.

"Tony Fonseca is the third staff member of Canada Soccer that stepped into this educational role for Ontario coaches," said Ontario Soccer Association (OSA) Technical Director, Gary Miller.

"Rob Gale, Canada Soccer's U-20 Coach, was here first to educate League1 coaches and assess League1 players for the national U20 men's team, and then John [Herdman] was in Ontario to educate League1 coaches and OPDL technical directors on the expectations of the National Female Program," he added.

For coaches from both of Ontario's standards based leagues - OPDL and League1 Ontario - education and player ID events are crucial to the development and viability of the high-performance pathway in both Ontario and Canada.

"The Canada Soccer staff have been and will continue to educate the Ontario-based coaches on what they are looking for in a player at a national team level, and some of gaps that show up with Canadian players at international levels of play," said Miller.

"These high level standards are creating better environments for the development of players, coaches and match officials."

Fonseca expressed his pleasure with Ontario's work with League1 Ontario and OPDL. 

"League1 offers an example of how to do a D3 league, and as well with OPDL, which I think is the best place to start on the youth end," concluded Fonseca.

"I truly believe that Ontario is heading in the right direction. Player pathways need to be followed - because, if not, players will have more problems knowing the next steps. I think the OSA has done very well in providing those steps."