Buchanan & Rose Take Canada Soccer Young Player Awards

Canadian Youth International Players of the Year for 2020 were named yesterday with the honours going to New England wide-player Tajon Buchanan, and U20 WNT centre-back, Jade Rose.

For the 2020 award, the list of women’s nominees featured U-20 players who participated at the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship. For the men’s nominees, given that no international competitions took place because of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Canada Soccer list featured Canadian U-23 players.

Tajon Buchanan was one of 20 players selected to represent Canada at the Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship in March 2020 before the tournament was postponed. From February through November, he was the only Canadian player that featured in every Major League Soccer game through to the Quarter-finals of the MLS Cup Playoffs with the New England Revolution. He notably scored his first career MLS goal on 12 September and his first MLS playoff goal on 24 November, both against the Supporters’ Shield winners Philadelphia Union.

Buchanan 21, from Brampton, Ontario, is still involved in MLS Play-off football having been instrumental in his side’s first two goals as they defeated Orlando City in the Eastern Conference semi-finals last weekend. he now looks forward to the eastern final against Columbus Crew.

Jade Rose starred at centre back for Canada at the Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship in February and March 2020. She was the only player to start in all five of Canada’s matches in the tournament’s revised format that was expanded from eight to 20 nations for the first time. Rose led Canada with 446 minutes through to the Concacaf Quarterfinals when Canada were eliminated by the eventual champions USA.

The 17-year-old Markham, Ontario native has been part of Canada Soccer’s youth program since 2017 and previously featured at the Concacaf Girls’ Under-15 Championship, the Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Championship, and the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup and was runner-up in voting for last year’s Canadian Youth International Player of the Year Award.

Meanwhile the Monthly Awards for November in both Men’s and Women’s categories were also announced, with Atiba Hutchinson taking the men’s award and Manchester City’s Janine Beckie the women’s.

Beckie became the first Canadian to score in an English women’s FA Cup Final while Hutchinson captained his Besiktas side back into contention in the Turkish SüperLig.

Photo by Visionhaus

Hutchinson played every minute for Beşiktaş in November as the team won three of four matches including a big 4-3 away victory over Istanbul rivals, Fenerbahçe, despite being reduced to 10 men. Beşiktaş have now jumped up into fourth place in the league standings, and sit just four points back of third-place Fenerbahçe. Also in November, Hutchinson registered a goal and an assist in a 3-2 success over another city rival, Başakşehir, who are competing in this season’s Champions League group stages.