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Fraser Aird signs with Glasgow Rangers Academy


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Scarborough teen signed by Scottish giant Rangers FC

http://www.thestar.com/sports/soccer/article/936640--scarborough-teen-signed-by-scottish-giant-rangers-fc

Like countless other Canadian-born kids with parents who hail from Europe, Fraser Aird inherited his favourite sports team.

Rangers FC was the choice in Aird’s Scarborough home, the inevitable byproduct of having both a father and a maternal grandpa who were longtime season ticket holders at Ibrox Stadium, the club’s Glasgow ground....

...An attacking midfielder with speed and an eye for goal, Aird will initially join Rangers’ Under-17 side. But club officials expect him to move quickly to the Under-19s, which is the third squad behind the first team and reserves.

“He’s a talented footballer with good technical ability,” says Jim Sinclair, who as director of the Rangers’ Murray Park Academy oversees all club sides but the first team.

“He has a wee bit of the Scot in him. He’s gritty. He’s direct.”

I'm not sure i'm enamoured with that last sentence, but good luck to the kid. Wonder if the U17 staff are aware of him, i suppose they should be - in the picture in the article he's training with the OSA NTC! Hopefully he remembers where he's from and plays for Canada and not Scotland (if he ends up being good enough).

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"He has a wee bit of the Scot in him"

With a name like Fraser Aird? Yah think?

We do tend to think of grit as an absence of quality sometimes, a crutch used to compensate in the absence of higher levels of certain skills, but then again we can find ourselves lamenting the absence of grit in some of our more skilled players when adversary demands it.

And there's the trick. Learning to use your qualities whatever they are, pace, fineness, vision, grit, as a tool and not as a crutch to become the best footballer you can.

Good luck to young Mr Aird. Here's hoping a bright future and long years of disappointing results against Celtic awaits him.

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For the record i'm not against him being Scottish or gritty, it's the "he's direct" part i'm weary of. For some it can mean he's fearless and willing to attack the defender head-on, for others it can mean kick the bloody ball into a general area and let your teammate fight for it.

By the way, he went on trial at Celtic AND Rangers back in 2008 - trials his family paid for out of pocket. He went back for trials the past couple of years at Burnley and Rangers that were paid for by the respective clubs. Looks like the persistence paid off. Guessing TFC was never going to be an option for this kid, he had a dream and made his mind up he was going to chase it.

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For the record i'm not against him being Scottish or gritty, it's the "he's direct" part i'm weary of. For some it can mean he's fearless and willing to attack the defender head-on, for others it can mean kick the bloody ball into a general area and let your teammate fight for it.

By the way, he went on trial at Celtic AND Rangers back in 2008 - trials his family paid for out of pocket. He went back for trials the past couple of years at Burnley and Rangers that were paid for by the respective clubs. Looks like the persistence paid off. Guessing TFC was never going to be an option for this kid, he had a dream and made his mind up he was going to chase it.

Landon Donovan is best described as a 'direct' player. No dicking about, beat your man, go to net. We could use some of that. Just saying.

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Landon Donovan is best described as a 'direct' player. No dicking about, beat your man, go to net. We could use some of that. Just saying.

If he's like Landon Donovan then great, if he's running around like a headless chicken - no thanks.

U15 Camp roster: http://www.canadasoccer.com/news/viewArtical.asp?Press_ID=4523

Good to know he's onboard with Canada!

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CSN is reporting that he has indeed opted to play for the Scots after not getting called up to our most recent U-17 call up.

http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/content.php?2129-Ay-the-boy-is-Canadian

It would be nice if "journalists" like Ben actually gave us some direct quotes from a few of the parties involved. Like Fleming, Hart or Fraser. It seems a lot of speculation on Bens part. Maybe he's right but he'd have a lot more credibility if he had a couple quotes in there.

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It would be nice if "journalists" like Ben actually gave us some direct quotes from a few of the parties involved. Like Fleming, Hart or Fraser. It seems a lot of speculation on Bens part. Maybe he's right but he'd have a lot more credibility if he had a couple quotes in there.

I 100% agree. What if he turned down the call up for the u17s or has never planned on playing for Canada? Seems like really poor journalism to assume he wasn't selected and it must be CSA's fault. Automatically blaming the CSA for a player who chooses another country is becoming predictable and boring.

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Just a general observation, but if these kids' moral characteristics are so weak that they can't take a single rejection, then these are guys I don't think will add very much when playing in Central America having little bags of pee tossed in their direction. No names mentioned, of course.

Speaking of Rangers someone posted at Ontario Soccer Talk that Luca Gasparotto has signed a 3 year contract with Rangers. I have not been able to find any confirmation.

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