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CNMI national team pool members Merrick Toves and Sebastien Manabat are heading to Washington, D.C. later this month to attend a training camp with Brookland Football Club.<\/p>\n
Toves and Manabat will leave Saipan on May 31 and will be joining Brooklyn\u2019s U20\/U23 players in a two-month training camp. The two players, who also suit up for Kanoa Footbal Club, will train under United States Soccer Federation E License coach and Brookland FC founder Thomas Walsh, and will play in the Elite Development Program-organized league. EDP is one of the largest organizers of youth soccer leagues and tournaments in the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look forward for the great opportunity to play in a different environment and different team and players,\u201d said Manabat. <\/p>\n
The midfielder\/centerback added that his while his stint with the CNMI men\u2019s and youth national teams has exposed him to the Asian-type of play, his upcoming appearance in the U.S. league with the Bookland FC will give him a better idea on another brand of soccer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard they play a more physical game out there. This will be an interesting training camp and a learning opportunity for myself and Merrick. The training camp will also allow us to apply what we have learned from the national team training and our coaches and see how we fare with players in the U.S. mainland,\u201d Manabat said.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old said they are going to play with and against players in the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Major League Soccer Youth Academy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can say that these players may have advantage over us because they have more game exposure, so this training camp will give us the time to test our mental toughness, too\u2014how we can adjust under pressure and not be scared of other players,\u201d Manabat said.<\/p>\n
Better goalkeeper<\/strong> \u201cThere are some things I need to work on. I\u2019m really hoping to learn a lot of new things from this trip so when I return I can help other goalkeepers here in the CNMI,\u201d the Mt. Carmel School student said.<\/p>\n College preparation<\/strong> CNMI Men\u2019s National Team head coach and Northern Mariana Islands Football Association technical director Michiteru Mita also acknowledged the training camp as an opportunity for Toves and Manabat to prepare for the collegiate play.<\/p>\n \u201cI heard this training camp\u2019s objective is to prepare them for college soccer. They\u2019ve been planning on going to college to pursue higher education and play soccer in a higher level,\u201d Mita said.<\/p>\n \u201cI want them to enjoy the experience and challenge and to always appreciate Kanoa Football Club, NMIFA, their family, and teammates who have been supporting them since the day they started playing soccer. And when they go-off island, always remember to represent the CNMI well on and off the pitch, as they have the CNMI flag on their chest,\u201d the head coach added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CNMI national team pool members Merrick Toves and Sebastien Manabat are heading to Washington, D.C….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nToves is thankful for the chance to attend the training camp with Manabat, saying that it\u2019s a rare opportunity for a young player and goalkeeper like him so he wants to capitalize on this occasion and work on improving his game.<\/p>\n
\nToves said that by playing with Brooklyn FC and in the EDP, he hopes to attract more scouts\/coaches who will be at the games looking to recruit players for their collegiate teams.<\/p>\n