There is a new Division 3 league sanctioned by the CSA in Quebec. Indeed, the Quebec Premier Soccer League (QPSL) played it's first full week on Sunday. The league will play its inaugural season with 5 clubs: AS Blainville, FC Boisbriand, FC Brossard, FC L'Assomption and Sanit-Leonard FC.The first match of the league was played on April 15th and Blianville won at L'Assomption by a score of 3 goals to 1.
Each team will play 20 matches. The founding members of the league will face each other 4 times this season and they will also play 4 exhibition games against teams outside of the league. They will face a team from Alymer, a club who is interested in playing the QPSL in 2013. Also, a U18 team from the Montreal Impact and a U23 from Quebec will play a friendly against each of those clubs. Finally, a guest team will play the last exhibition match. It could be a team from the CSL like the St. Cahtarines Wolves and Niagara United. If the same CSL team is playing against the QPSL clubs each time, those are the two clubs who don't have games when the guest team is supposed to play the QPSL teams. It could also be a club team that is interested to play in the QPSL the next year.
There are known players to the Quebec soccer community. Plenty of former Impact players have joined the league. Hicham Aaboubou plays with Brossard, Sandro Grande and Rocco Placentino are teammates at Saint-Leonard, and Antonio Ribeiro is a member of L'Assomption. Plenty of Quebec-based players will benefit from the system which will give a shot to the younger players to play in a league at a higher level.
Among those clubs, there is AS Blainville. They already sold 1500 season tickets and their sporting director, Jean-Pierre Cériani, thinks that number can get up to 3000. The club wants everyone that wants season tickets to come; They are selling a lot of their tickets for $10 until their home opener on May 13th. The amount of season tickets was so big that the club has decided to play their first home games at Parc Maurice-Tessier insetad of Parc Blainville because of the tickets sold and also for security reasons.
The club doesn't have many players who are known to Canadian players. Cériani says that he has a team and he doesn't necessarily need known players or a superstar who is known to every Quebecer and Canadian soccer fan. The player who is the most known player on the team is a former player of the U-20 team, Toronto FC and Montreal Impact, Christian Nuñez. The club also created their own hymn “Un pour tous, Tous unis” (One for all, All United”) sung by Ély.
It will be interesting to see what kind of success the QPSL will hav.e This league will give more opportunities to players who didn't have a team and to play at a level comparable to the CSL, a league that exists West of the Ottawa River. It will be intersting to see the progression of the league in the future years.
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