Oliver Spring was just 13 years old, trying out for TFC Academy, when he suffered his first concussion. A ball, travelling at high velocity, careened into his skull. Spring dropped to the ground.

“Israel was incredible for me. I had two fantastic years playing there. But I felt that it was time for a new challenge.”

Since the holiday season began, three Canadians have settled in with their new Israeli clubs — Tomer Chencinski, Oliver Spring and Daniel Haber.

Alan Koch, the architect of Simon Fraser University’s soccer program, is taking on a new challenge. He will coach the Canadian team at the 2013 Maccabi Games.

Like CONCACAF, Asia has a couple of big dogs on the block — South Korea and Japan — who are considered to be automatics to qualify for World Cups. And, Australia, like Canada, has still show itself to be wildly inconsistent in qualifying. But Australia isn’t waiting. It doesn’t see reform as a long-term, long-tail process. There’s a recognition that if you have a talented generation of footballers, you need to develop them, post-haste. It’s an exceptionally ballsy, lay-it-on-the-line goal to say that you want to be a top-10 FIFA nation... in just a little over three years.

Oliver Spring is a name that Canadian soccer fans need to have on their radars. The 15-year-old Toronto native has been invited back to the Netherlands for a third spell with Feyenoord’s academy.