Local soccer talent Carleigh Miller will complete her Canadian Interuniversity Sport career in Russia when she represents Canada at the 2013 Summer Universiade Games in Kazan, Russia July 6 to 17.
Miller is one of six University of Alberta Pandas soccer players to earn a spot on the Canadian roster. Canada West placed 13 players on the team, while six came from the Ontario University Athletics conference and one from Quebec.
The St. Albert Catholic High School alumna just completed her fifth and final year of eligibility with the Pandas. A University of Alberta nursing graduate, Miller works at the Royal Alexandra Hospital and plays for Edmonton Victoria in the Alberta Major Soccer league.
“It’s kind of bittersweet considering this is my last kick at the can to play abroad and to play for a university team,” she says. “So I’m very excited and very proud to be a part of this team, but again it’s bitter because I know this is my last shot.”
The midfielder has been battling back from an ankle fracture that happened when she was tackled at the Canadian team tryouts in the spring.
“It’s been challenging,” she says of her recovery. “It’s had ups and downs, but now it’s feeling alright, so hopefully I can get through this,” Miller says. “I hope by the time the games come around, I’ll be close to 95 per cent. I don’t think I’ll be able to get to 100 just because of how fast I’ve had to recover.”
This will be Miller’s second trip to the biennial International University Sports Federation (FISU) championship. She represented Canada at the 2011 Universiade in China where Team Canada equalled its best-ever result capturing fifth place out of 12 teams.
St. Albert coach Liz Jepsen is also making a return to the Universiade games this year. The Pandas head coach and 2006 Canadian Interuniversity Sport coach of the year will be Canada’s boss on the sideline. Jepsen was an assistant coach with the Canadian squad for the 2009 games in Serbia.
“I’m extremely honoured to have been selected for this position,” Jepsen says. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to see and experience and work with all the top-level athletes in Canada. They’re quite an amazing group of young ladies … both for their play and just their approach and commitment to soccer.”
Coaching a team that has spent only a couple of weeks together over the course of six months can be challenging, but Jepsen says as a university coach she is accustomed to coaching a team whose players aren’t all local and has streamlined her program to accommodate distance.
“It’s a really unique undertaking,” she says. “We actually haven’t been centralized, so what we do is work together at a distance to try and put many of the same training concepts in place.”
Players were given training schedules and activities to do at home along with practising with their respective school teams and Jepsen and the coaches provide feedback based on the athletes’ training logs. Team tryouts were held in November and March.
The squad will play exhibition games in Poland against the national team and one of the country’s top soccer clubs before heading to Kazan.
“We’re hoping that when we step on the field after travelling a day and a half to go play the women’s national team in Poland, our previous groundwork and what we can do while we’re travelling helps tactically bring everyone together,” says the head coach.
Miller anticipates that coming together quickly will be one of the challenges for the ladies.
“I think the hardest part will be coming together from all these different universities and trying to play together as one team, because there’s just so many different styles of players that sometimes it’s a challenge to try to meld everyone together.”
The former all-Canadian says the other challenge will be, “just the adjustment to the country, the food, the weather. Playing internationally always brings lots of challenges and you have to be able to adjust quickly in order to be able to play properly.”
Jepsen experienced some of those difficulties with the Canadian team in Serbia where games were cancelled or moved because of local flooding.
“Actually when we were there in 2009, interestingly enough all the floods that you see that are happening in Calgary, were happening in Serbia, the exact same thing,” she says.
Jepsen says that prior knowledge and experience at the Universiade Games gave her a very nice opportunity to see what the international experience was like. It also provided her with a chance to experience the international soccer.
“Until you see the international game, you can’t really understand the international game,” Jepsen says. “And having gone last time, it’s different, that kinesthetic awareness of being involved and actually experiencing it. Seeing a Chinese player and her ability to be sitting on the 18-yard box and to ping a ball cross field, diagonally, and put it on the foot of one of her forwards on the opposite side. Until you see that happen, even if you sometimes see that on TV, it just doesn’t process the same way.”
For Miller, having that knowledge of international play is a definite advantage of having been to the Universiade games before.
“I know that the European teams play entirely different compared to Asian teams. Last time when we played Japan, China and Chinese Tai Pei, they all played a very similar style in that everything was super quick, their technique was superb and it was just a very fast-paced game.”
She says that comparatively, Canada and the European teams tend to play a more physical game.
Style of play isn’t the only area in which the teams will differ on the pitch in Russia. Jepsen says that her squad will be competing with some squads that have a number of national team players on their rosters.
“That’s the case for many of the teams where they use this as their under-23 camp or an under-23 international experience,” Jepsen says. “In Canada, we’re still working to marry the CIS with the (Canadian Soccer Association) so at this stage, we’re our own unique entity and we operate outside of the CSA.”
Jepsen says of the 20 players on Ireland’s roster, 12 are senior women’s national team players. But a lack of national team players on the Canadian roster doesn’t diminish the talent of the country’s top university players.
“We have some players on the team that are I think outstanding players and could be potential identified players for our women’s national team,” Jepsen says. “And I’m hoping maybe it will get them another look within the program. We have quite a few players that have been international, with the FISU prior, so I think we have a nice answer to the ask of Ireland. But the biggest thing I would say right now is recognizing that other programs have very good well-experienced players going in.”
The Universiade Games are modelled after the Olympic games and representing Canada is a huge opportunity for university students, but a spot on the team can come with a high price tag.
“That’s why I think a lot of the girls were deterred away from actually trying out and going through with this – because of the cost,” Miller says. “Because the female soccer program wasn’t covered at all.”
The trip to Russia will cost Miller about $5,000. A St. Albert Soccer Association pub night fundraiser on May 31 and other donations she received helped Miller to cover about half the cost of the journey.
“I was able to work a lot and get some donations so I’ve been okay,” she says. “But for the girls who have student loans or whatnot, it can be a challenge.”
