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Defense wins Championships.
It is a truism that stretches across all professional sports and one that was reinforced one more time during the Olympics as Canadians saw their Olympic Men’s hockey team bring home the gold one more time via a tour de force defensive display.
It is also one that will likely be put to a test by a TFC team that spent the majority of its offseason focused on acquiring high priced offensive talent. So while players such as Jermaine Defoe, Michael Bradley, Gilberto and Dwayne De Rosario garnered most of the offseason headlines, the performances of Toronto’s returning central defense tandem of 33 year old Steven Caldwell and 20 year old Doneil Henry will undoubtedly play a key role in whether or not the Reds enjoys a breakthrough season.
In that vein, the fact that Henry has now returned to TFC brimming with confidence after an offseason training stint with English Premier League side West Ham United is certainly something that bodes well for Toronto’s defensive prospects.
“I took it really seriously when I went (to London),” Henry told RedNation Online. “I knew it was an opportunity to showcase myself and to get a feeling about what it is like to be with a Premier League team and a side with a lot of history as a club. They have a great manager over there and a lot of great players that I got to meet. I trained day in, day out with the first team. It was great.”
“I saw lot of things during my time there, including how professional the footballers are in terms of how they carry themselves,” Henry added. “It is a different lifestyle when you are playing top flight football in England. From the day I stepped onto the training ground there, I was treated well and I didn’t feel out of place. When I got my chance to play, I thought I did really well.”
Most importantly, Henry’s confidence was buoyed by the fact that he feels he performed well playing against and training with players from arguably the top league in the world.
“I was open to learning,” Henry explained. “I spoke a lot with a lot of the older guys who play my position and who have played in World Cups. It was a great experience. Now that I have had a taste of playing at that level, I know that I can potentially play there one day. I just have to keep working hard and to keep doing the simple things.”
Doneil Henry speaks with RedNation on his offseason training regimen, his bulked up physique and TFC's acquisition of keeper Julio Cesar
So while TFC Head Coach Ryan Nelsen has earned plenty of plaudits in recent weeks for the role he played in bringing several marquee names to Toronto over the offseason, it is important to note that he did not neglect the ongoing development of a key young player such as Henry.
“Ryan played a big part in setting up the training stint with West Ham and he pushed me to go,” Henry said. “Ryan has been such an inspiration to me in my career. He has been a great role model for me and he is always pushing me and talking to me.”
While he has returned to Toronto all the more confident from his offseason experiences with West Ham and the Canadian Men’s National Team, Henry was also quick to stress that overconfidence and cockiness won’t be an issue for the emerging talent.
“I’m trying to stay level headed,” Henry explained. “I don’t want to get overconfident because that could be my biggest downfall. I just want to continue to grow every day and to continue to have the same work rate every day in training that I have shown throughout my career.”
“I’m always trying to learn and to work on bettering my weaknesses and still taking advice from people who can help me in my career,” he added. “I’m definitely confident, but I’m not going to let that get the best of me and I know I have to keep working hard.”
Ultimately, the confidence that Henry feels about his own game is only echoed by the confidence that he feels about Toronto FC’s chances of breaking through and becoming a club to be reckoned with in Major League Soccer.
“I think that Ryan was put in a tough position last year in that he didn’t get all of the players that he wanted,” Henry said. “This year is different with all of the offseason transactions. On paper you can see that there is greater quality and depth at every position. We went into the offseason needing to add to our strike force and I think we did that and more.”
“Everybody’s job will be easier if everyone can buy into playing for Nelsen in the manner he wants to play tactically and along with heart and work rate that he wants,” Henry added. “At the end of the day, I definitely think we can compete.”
Now entering his fourth full season with TFC and coming into his own as a player whose athletic gifts are now supported by his years of experience and training in a professional environment, Henry is actually coming into his own at a younger age than many players who were recently drafted out of college via the MLS SuperDraft.
With both himself and his team now on the cusp of another level of success, Henry admitted that he is happy with the road he has taken since becoming the first player from the TFC Academy to make the jump to the senior team back in 2010.
“Everybody has their decisions to make and it has to be based on what their ambitions are,” Henry said. “I had the same choice as other players to go to school, but I knew where my heart was and I have known what I wanted to do from a very young age.”
“It was definitely hard (going pro at 17 years old), but after the first two years of getting my feet wet (at the MLS level), I experienced a change and a sense of breaking out as a player,” Henry explained. “I lot of the guys who are coming out of the draft now, they struggle because they aren’t used to breaking into a professional environment. I don’t think college sets you up for that transition in the same way that an academy does. I think I made the right choice and I think I have done well.”
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