The Canadian Premier League’s #GotGame Open Trials have officially sold out in Toronto and Hamilton, and trials lead coach and former Canadian international Alex Bunbury spoke with Gareth Wheeler on TSN 1050 about his excitement for the upcoming tryouts, and the role the league will play in developing future national team stars, too.
With spots still available in other cities for the coast-to-coast Open Trials – starting in Halifax on Sept. 20-21, with registrations officially closing on Tuesday, Sept. 18 – Bunbury told Wheeler he hopes to find talented young players across the country, as the CPL gears up for its inaugural 2019 season, kicking off next April.
Bunbury and Wheeler talk numbers behind CPL’s Open Trials. Listen to the full interview here.
“The first thing I think makes it so enjoyable and so promising is that it’s a Canadian league that is built by Canadians and we are going after these young, talented Canadian players that are out there,” Bunbury told Wheeler on TSN 1050. “This league is for them. This league is going to give us that extra push that we need so that we can enjoy all of the great things that come with being a nation that plays soccer at a high level. Be a name for younger players to look at and say ‘Wow, CPL is where I want to be because it will give me the opportunity to play for my national team.'”
While Bunbury’s own professional career – which saw him join English Premier League outfit West Ham United before heading to Portuguese side Maritime, where he became the club’s all-time top scorer – should serve as inspiration for this young crop of talented future stars, the former Hamilton Steelers striker offered that the CPL also allows Canadian players to avoid some of the career obstacles he had to overcome.
Namely, choosing between playing for a club or representing Canada.
“I lost my spot at West Ham, because you know why? Because I had to go back and play for my country,” Bunbury revealed to Wheeler. “Billy Bonds at the time called me into his office and said ‘Club or country? We pay your salary.’ I could not turn my back on my country, because this country gave me so much.
“I’m an immigrant. My family migrated from Guyana, the country of my birth, to Montreal, when I was nine years of age, the youngest of 13. I learned to play soccer in Montreal, in St. Leonard. That’s where I learned to play soccer at the age of 12. I developed my skill-set with quality coaches and being able to play with quality Canadian players, and I went to Europe, and at that time, there must have been four or five North American players playing at the highest level. To this day, it haunts me and it really bugs me that I lost my spot because I had to come and play for my country and they didn’t look at that like it was something I should be proud of.
“Now with this new Canadian Premier League that’s going to debut in 2019 for these young players, they don’t have to go through that. This is what this league is going to provide. You can stay in your country and develop and not have to think like that, because the coaches will know how important it is to go and represent your country.”
The CPL’s #GotGame trials open Sept. 20 in Halifax before stops in Montreal (Sept. 27-28), Hamilton (Oct. 1-2), Toronto (Oct. 11-12), Winnipeg (Oct. 18-19), Calgary (Oct. 25-26) and Vancouver Island (Nov. 5-6). Think you’ve #GotGame? Register at CanPL.ca/GotGame.