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Ayo Akinola


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6 hours ago, El Hombre said:

Sure, but you could say the same for virtually every other player: Millar, Hamilton, Jackson-Hamel, Perruzza, Bair, Zanatta, Nelson etc..  Why not invest in players that actually have a desire to play for Canada?  He missed his chance.

Certainly it's a fair question. 

Not sure he missed his chance though.

Akindele comes to mind here...

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I’m kinda mixed when it comes to Akinola. I’m not a fan of how he grew up and developed in Canada yet decided he’d rather rep the states. I also think there are multiple young forwards who are better than him at this point who actually want to play for Canada. 

On the other hand, he is still just 20 and seemed promising at one point and we’re not so deep in any position that we can turn down players. I think at this point he has to actually earn it over the others though, I don’t want him getting called up just for the purpose of cap tying him. Though I think he would have to file his one time switch anyways? I forget the exact rules for youth players. 

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8 hours ago, Bdog said:

I’m kinda mixed when it comes to Akinola. I’m not a fan of how he grew up and developed in Canada yet decided he’d rather rep the states. I also think there are multiple young forwards who are better than him at this point who actually want to play for Canada. 

On the other hand, he is still just 20 and seemed promising at one point and we’re not so deep in any position that we can turn down players. I think at this point he has to actually earn it over the others though, I don’t want him getting called up just for the purpose of cap tying him. Though I think he would have to file his one time switch anyways? I forget the exact rules for youth players. 

I mean he was in TFC's academy, was recommended to the US by his coach, and the CSA didn't bother to try and include him in camps. 

 

We can't ignore who horrendous Canada is at using players at youth level. We had two professional players who were eligible for the 2019 FIFA U-17 WC and both were ignored in Pepple and Ole.

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11 hours ago, VinceA said:

I mean he was in TFC's academy, was recommended to the US by his coach, and the CSA didn't bother to try and include him in camps.

That's a pretty damning accusation.  Are you sure there was no contact between the CSA and this kid? 

He has been repping the US since before this thread started.

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11 hours ago, VinceA said:

I mean he was in TFC's academy, was recommended to the US by his coach, and the CSA didn't bother to try and include him in camps. 

 

We can't ignore who horrendous Canada is at using players at youth level. We had two professional players who were eligible for the 2019 FIFA U-17 WC and both were ignored in Pepple and Ole.

In fairness, Pepple was brought to the final camp prior to the U17WC.  Who is Ole?

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1 hour ago, El Hombre said:

That's a pretty damning accusation.  Are you sure there was no contact between the CSA and this kid? 

He has been repping the US since before this thread started.

The stories are years old but his coach in Brampton before he even joined TFC mentioned in an interview that Ayo was recommended to Canada for one of their U-15 camps but when they didn't respond, he also put out feelers to the US who then contacted him when he joined TFC.

 

Ultimately I think he plays for us but his current career trajectory seems to be going into a Jordan Hamilton direction.

Edited by VinceA
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52 minutes ago, Ivan said:

In fairness, Pepple was brought to the final camp prior to the U17WC.  Who is Ole?

Ole is the youngster at Forge.

 

The fact Pepple didn't make the team was ridiculous. Having a player at that age actually playing against men should always take precedence over academy players.

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5 minutes ago, VinceA said:

Ole is the youngster at Forge.

 

The fact Pepple didn't make the team was ridiculous. Having a player at that age actually playing against men should always take precedence over academy players.

I have no idea how Pepple fared in that camp.  Maybe he got just outplayed or maybe he got snubbed, who knows.  But I don't th think kids in CanPL should always be given precedence over their academy counterparts any more than MLS academy players should be given precedence over CanPL kids.  Just keep an open mind, hold more camps, and pick the best players.  We've seen young players succeed out of all kinds of backgrounds, and young players fail from all kinds of backgrounds, even big European academies.

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I personally feel that this was a Vanney move with his hate-on for Canadian talent and his desire to develop American players for the USA. From what I understand, Akinola has lived most of his life here in Canada. If he doesn't want to play for us - then don't. No point in constantly trying to persuade someone who identifies as an American. We have plenty of talent now and it will be much harder for fringe players like this to crack a Canadian squad now. Let the patriotic Canadian players develop the pathway because when a player's heart is with his country, amazing things can happen. 

Where's Findlay and Bunbury these days? They can't even crack the US squad. Let these non-committed "Canadians" rot.
The longer Akinola waits "no time to rush" the worse he will make it for himself. You want in? Show you are committed. Show you are Canadian first. If not, buh bye.

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This thread is overzealous. 

Ayo is not worthy of CMNT call-up, nor is he close to the quality we have at U-23 level.
He hasn't done much to impress me to have these conversations of "will he or won't he" .

If he declares tomorrow that he wants to represent Canada - then great! but he still has a lot of work to do for there to be any further covnersations.

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I really can't see him requesting a one-time switch for U-23 duty and he hasn't done close to enough to earn a full international cap, nor has he done enough to earn one on the US side, so like Shway says this is kind of a non-starter at the moment. 

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4 hours ago, Shway said:

This thread is overzealous. 

Ayo is not worthy of CMNT call-up, nor is he close to the quality we have at U-23 level.
He hasn't done much to impress me to have these conversations of "will he or won't he" .

If he declares tomorrow that he wants to represent Canada - then great! but he still has a lot of work to do for there to be any further covnersations.

THIS!

Said it before but I really do believe he is a USL level player at best. He has very noticeable weaknesses that I don't think will change much in the near future.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 minutes ago, Corazon said:

He's looked good so far.

Have to agree - he’s been extremely active, made himself available and made some excellent runs. He also didn’t capitalize on a few good opportunities but overall a very strong first half from Akinola.

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