One of the most common post season topics that have been covered by a number of writers as they have looked back on the season that was for Toronto FC has been the emergence of the talented young players on the team and the hope that those youngsters provide the club with, both now and in the future. And while Joao Plata, Ashtone Morgan, Matt Stinson and Doneil Henry deserve all of the kudos and plaudits they have been receiving for their impressive 2011 campaigns, one young player who is often consistently left out when the discussion centers on Toronto’s young talent is Nick Soolsma.
Yes, the 23 year old forward is a few years older than the aforementioned players and his pace has sometimes been called into question with respect to his ability to compete at the MLS level. At the same time, Soolsma did lead Toronto FC in assists (along with Plata) this past season and, while he will never be mistaken for Theo Walcott as a sprinter down the wing, the fact of the matter is that the young Dutchman was Toronto’s most consistent performer in terms of delivering quality balls into the opposition box. Soolsma should be included in all discussions around Toronto’s group of emerging young talent, as he is a player who can grow with TFC next year and in the coming years.
While the Dutch forward did come to Toronto with a few years of professional experience in Holland under his belt, his first season with Toronto was one in which he had to adjust to a new league, a new country and a new team.
“I think it will be easier to play next year. At the beginning of the season I had to get used to a lot of different things because it was the first time that I did not live with my family and friends around me. There has been a lot of travelling and the league was very new to me and very physical. At the beginning, it was hard to get used to those types of things, but now I have found my way here and I think in the second half of the season I played better than I did in the first half of the season. I think I will start the next season how I ended this season and will play better next year,” says Soolsma.
While he originally came to Toronto as part of a type of an Orange package deal of three Dutch players along with Elbekay Bouchiba (who was ultimately injured for the entire season) and Javier Martina, the former Young Boys forward became more comfortable as part of the team and with the squad’s young players in particular as the season progressed.
“I think we have a nice atmosphere on the squad now. I have no problems with anybody on the team and, yeah, with some of them you can say that we are friends. Outside of soccer, I see Plata a lot and some of the other players. We go to eat in the city. I think the team as a whole played better in the second half of the season. I think that with all of the trades we had a team that was capable of getting better and better as we got used to each other. And I also got used to the league and the different things that were new to me here in North America and I think that helped me a lot. ”
With the FC Volendam youth player having delivered improved form in conjunction with the team as a whole in the second half of the season, Soolsma believes that he ultimately made the right choice to join TFC even though he did have other options prior to signing up under Dutch Head Coach and Technical Director Aron Winter last spring.
“I think it was the right decision to come to Toronto. There was a possibility that I was going to go to Qatar two weeks before Toronto approached me. But I think this is the right direction for my career. With everything here in Toronto and in the MLS, I can learn a lot from it and I hope that next year it will be my year to score more goals and get more assists. I think the city is nice. There are a lot of things to do here and there are nice restaurants. I live downtown and I like the city a lot. It's a little bit like Amsterdam, because there are a lot of things to do. I do enjoy it here.”
With Soolsma and Joao Plata sharing the position of assists leader at the conclusion of the 2011 season, Toronto was much improved out wide from previous years and the 6 foot 1 forward/midfielder believes that the different approaches that he and the young Ecuadorian star bring to the team are complementary and made it hard for teams to defend against TFC.
“Plata is a player who is unpredictable when he has the ball and that's a very good quality, because the opposition defense also does not know what he is going to do and whether he will go inside or outside. He is very dangerous with his right foot on the left side. I'm more a player who plays on the outside and sends the crosses in. I think that if you have seen the last few games, you can see that it works very well together and I feel comfortable with that style of attacking.”
While he scored some important goals for Toronto in the Champions League, against Columbus to win the Trillium Cup and in TFC’s final game of the season, Soolsma sees his role primarily as a wide forward in a 4-3-3 who sets up the team’s centre forward to score the majority of the goals.
“I think my role is to give assists because I am a winger and I like to deliver the crosses. I think that my quality is in beating the opponent, giving the cross and letting somebody else score. But of course you always want to score yourself as well. But I think my primary quality is to send in the crosses so Danny can score or Ryan can score.”
In many ways, the positive aspects that Nick Soolsma brought to Toronto FC in 2011 flew under the radar for many people, but his name genuinely deserves to be mentioned both when discussing the teams up and coming players and when highlighting the ones that brought improved success to TFC in the second half of the season. Whether as a starter or substitute, it’s a decent bet that Soolsma will continue to grow as a young player and will play an important role for Toronto FC in 2012. He might not have generated the plaudits, quotes and headlines that other some other TFC players did in 2011, but it was telling that Soolsma was featured at the team’s end of season media event while Javier Martina was nowhere to be seen.
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