International Program

The Green & Gold Soccer Academy's International Program offers a unique opportunity for academy prospects, boys and girls, to travel to Europe or North America for high-level competition, exposure to the professional game, and training with professional coaches from some of the soccer's premier club academies. The Green & Gold Soccer Academy has the distinction of having provided 11 international tours for both our male and female prospects since 2001. The list of countries visited is impressive and includes England, Spain, Italy and the US!

Competitive games have been played against some of Europe's top professional club youth teams including Real Madrid, Arsenal, Fiorentina, Juventus, Newcastle United, Athletic Bilbao, Sampdoria, Everton, AC Milan, Athletico Madrid, Middlesbrough FC, SS Lazio, Sunderland AFC, Chievo Verona and Charlton Athletic.

Many players, who have been a part of our academy and international program, have gone on to play professionally and have featured on Canadian youth and senior national teams including Eddy Sidra (Eergie Cottbus, Germany), Shaun Saiko (Middlesbrough FC, England), Ethan Gage (Reading, England) and Matt Lam (Ajax, Holland).

In recent years, a number of academy prospects have been recruited by the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency Program and have or are continuing to develop their skills within this program. These players include Tim Hickson, Sebastian Cabrera, Sadi Jalali, Marcus Johnstone and Antonio Rago. Former academy players Shaun Saiko, Jas Gill, Antonio Rago, Marcus Johnstone, Sam Lam, Matt Lam and Eddy Sidra have played with FC Edmonton of the North American Soccer League (NASL). Bruno Zebie, Ajay Khabra, Thomas Shores, Carlos Patino, Norbert Janas, Shamit Shome, Ajeej Sarkharia and many ohter players have graduated from our academy program to the FC Edmonton Reserve team squad.