York United FC midfielder Max Ferrari’s breakneck August run has put him top of the Jones Deslauriers | Navacord U-21 Minutes Leaderboard for the month, compiling 1,312 minutes so far this season.
Ferrari, who signed a contract extension with the club last week, played all but ten minutes of York’s previous month’s slate of matches, adding a goal and two assists and emerging as an early contender for the Best Under-21 Player of the Year award in the process. The 21-year-old Newmarket, Ont. native overtook teammate Terique Mohammed at the top of the minutes-played leaderboard.
York leads the way with a staggering nine under-21 players seeing the pitch this season for a total of 5,292 minutes. Their 905 Derby rivals Forge FC are second with six players, though third-place Valour FC (on five players) has racked up 3,643 minutes total – over triple Hamilton’s 906 minutes played. York and Valour are joined by Cavalry FC (2,473), Pacific FC (2,010), and HFX Wanderers (2,136) as five CanPL teams to pass the 1,500-minute league requirement for young domestic players.
As for the individual players on the Jones Deslauriers | Navacord U-21 Minutes Leaderboard, it’s no surprise that York continues to dominate the top eight (listed below) with Isaiah Johnston and Lowell Wright joining Ferrari. Elsewhere, former CPL-U SPORTS Draft pick Jake Ruby has shot up the standings on a rich vein of form with Halifax while CF Montreal loanees Jonathan Sirois and Karifa Yao continue to earn first-team rookie pro minutes at Valour and Cavalry, respectfully.
This year, with an increased quota for U-21 minutes that each team must meet over the course of the season the role of young Canadian talent has expanded sharply as clubs look for meaningful contributions from the youth contingents among their roster. At The Kickoff, York jumped out to an early lead in the team-wide U-21 minutes standings, surpassing the 1,500-minute mark after just four games.
So far in this CPL season, 40 Canadian players under the age of 21 have seen the pitch with clubs handing minutes to at least three players each. The top eight U-21 Canadian CPL players in terms of minutes are below. To be eligible, domestic players must have been born no earlier than January 1, 2000.
