Long before Moïse Bombito was starring for the Canadian men's national team, he was working in CS Saint-Laurent summer camps for Rocco Placentino.
"He was one of my worst employees," joked Placentino, now co-founder and president of FC Supra du Québec. "Just because he was a kid and he wanted to have fun instead of teaching the kids; he wanted to play with them. I would never hire him [again] for a summer camp."
Bombito, who spent almost a decade with Saint-Laurent youth teams before embarking on his professional journey, is one of many current pros to pass through Placentino's system.
Many of them now feature in the FC Supra squad in the CPL. Bombito and Ismaël Koné, though, are about to play for Canada at the World Cup; both players are expected to be named to Jesse Marsch's 26-man squad on Friday night.
For Placentino, who had one senior Canada cap of his own as a player, the success of those two is his chief inspiration for building FC Supra into a professional club for, and by, the Québec soccer community.
"What I did in Saint-Laurent, which was a small community club, I want to do for the whole province," Placentino said.
He added: "Believe it or not, today Supra exists because of guys like that. It's hard to explain, because you have to live it to understand it. There's so many more Ismaëls and Moïses that we have here in Quebec, and they gave me the strength back in the day to believe in this project and to believe in myself and to make it happen.
"It was a need, and those two players really made me not sleep at night to make sure I got this team."
Koné, midfielder for Italian side Sassuolo and one of the brightest stars in Canada at 23 years old, was only in Saint-Laurent's youth system for a couple of years. Placentino could see he would be something special, though. That's why he wasn't surprised to see Koné play at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, barely two years removed from semi-pro football in Québec. He moved quickly from Saint-Laurent to CF Montréal, and eventually to Europe.
"He's a special kid," Placentino said. "Beyond just the football part of it. He's just a simple kid, he came from nothing, and today he's playing soccer at the highest level you could possibly play in Serie A, in Italy, and he gets to play in the World Cup again.
"He deserves it; there's not a word to describe it, and I'm not being biased because he's a player that didn't sit around, but genuinely deserves it. He's a special player. He's so gifted, he's so raw, and with time you can see that he's also gaining experience, controlling his emotions and becoming a mature role model for the upcoming talent we have in this country."
Bombito, meanwhile, had a longer route to this World Cup moment. His circuitous path took him through Ligue1 Québec, CEGEP soccer and the NCAA before going professional with MLS side Colorado Rapids. Now, at OGC Nice in France, he has 19 Canada caps under his belt and is sure to rack up more.
Placentino still recalls a particular Bombito assist in U-13 soccer, which qualified Saint-Laurent to the elite AAA level. He was a striker originally, later moving to the wing and then to right-back before, under his Collège Ahuntsic coach François Bourgeais, settling as a centre-back.
Over the past decade, Placentino has watched with pride as Bombito has grown from the goofy kid working summer camps, to a potential starting defender for the host nation at a FIFA World Cup.
He explains that, unlike Koné — whose gifts were evident from the very beginning — Bombito matured a later, which is why he didn't turn pro until the age of 23. Placentino explained that Bombito is, therefore, a prime example of the importance of strengthening Canada's soccer pathways.
"He was a late bloomer," Placentino said.
"That's why I always emphasize to my coaches, to people that run soccer here in our province, don't ever give up on a player, because they could flourish at a later stage in their lives. Moïse is a fantastic example where he got faster, he got bigger, he got stronger, he got smarter."
Both players, as well as the broader cast of CS Saint-Laurent alumni, are emblematic of the kind of potential Placentino sees in Canadian — and specifically Quebecois — soccer.
Bombito himself recently said on OneSoccer that he hopes one day we'll see national team players emerge from FC Supra.
There's always been a wealth of Canadian soccer talent, but various factors have meant that players across the country have historically been overlooked or not reached their full potential.
One way Placentino wants to address that is by ensuring no youngster falls off the radar because of lack of means. That's always been central to his philosophy — he actually delayed CS Saint-Laurent's original step into semi-pro, because he wanted the club to be funded by sponsors and not players and families.
"Those players, like Jesse Marsch said last year in an interview, can't fall through the cracks. I'm promising Jesse Marsch that that's gonna end," Placentino said.
"It's going to take a lot of time, but we're going to put something together that we miss nobody on our radar."
Placentino explained that he's seen players fall out of the system because they missed out on scholarship or funding opportunities, often because they've been unable to keep up their grades.
"What I mean by that is if you're a player that's not good enough to play in a [scholarship] program, because your grades aren't good enough, that's not happening anymore," he said.
"Some kids don't have the means to have good grades, because what they live in — and I lived it, I'm telling you, I lived it. I've seen things that are indescribable, and when I leave these apartments or these houses, I'm super grateful for what I had in my life, but I want to have that for those kids."
Placentino and the rest of the FC Supra organization are already hard at work this year trying to develop a new generation of Quebecois professional players.
For a few weeks in June, though, Placentino will allow himself a moment of pride. More likely than not — especially after Bombito's recent assurances — both CS Saint-Laurent alumni will walk out in Toronto on June 12 to open the World Cup for Canada against Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Placentino knows exactly what it feels like to play for your country, and for Bombito and Koné to do so on the biggest possible stage, there's surely nothing better.
Perhaps in 2030, he'll be able to see an FC Supra alumnus play alongside them.
