Those who watched Kianz Froese score his first goal in Major League Soccer didn't have to wonder what it meant to the Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder.
Wheeling away from the goal, grinning from ear to ear, the joy was clearly written all over his face for everyone to see. Froese's goal was not only an important personal milestone, it proved to be the winner for the Whitecaps in their 2-1 road victory over the New York Red Bulls on Saturday.
Five days after that strike, it was still just sinking in for Froese.
“What went through my mind was, 'Did it really go in? Really?'” Froese, who dedicated the goal to his ailing father, Joe, told MLSsoccer.com this week. “Then it was, 'Oh my God, I've scored.' That essentially was what was going through my head. I thought, 'I can't believe this, this is amazing.' Then I just had a feeling in my stomach. It's indescribable, really.
“In MLS, goals are the big weight. My first one, and it was a dream. In my head, I've always dreamed of it, and now finally it's a reality. Sometimes, even today, I wonder and I say to myself, 'Did I really score? Is this really true?' And it is.”
Froese signed a Homegrown Player contract with Vancouver in September 2014, having been with the club's residency program since 2012.
Always a regular scorer at youth level with both the Whitecaps and Canada's youth national teams, Froese's first pro goal came in his seventh MLS appearance. It could have come four weeks earlier at Colorado, when Froese found himself with space in the box, but he pulled his effort wide right.
It was a squandered opportunity that haunted him.
“I took my touch and I scuffed it,” Froese recalled. "Gordon [Forrest, Whitecaps assistant coach] had told me earlier, 'You'll probably get a chance this game,' and that was my chance and I missed. I was upset after that. I felt I needed to score that.”
The way Froese responded to that setback has delighted his head coach, Carl Robinson, who has long been an admirer of the midfielder's talent and potential.
“It was vitally important,” Robinson said of the mental aspect of Froese finishing his chance at New York. “That was my teaching point to him after the game. Three or four weeks earlier, he had the opportunity and he snatched at it because he got uptight in front of goal and was nervous, as most young players are.
“Four weeks down the line, he's managed to stay composed and slide the ball into the bottom corner against a top, top goalkeeper,” he added. “In that period of time, he's shown he's able to take information on board and learn from different situations.”
That learning mentality been instilled in him since an early age.
Born in Havana to a Canadian father and a Cuban mother, Froese moved to Canada at age 1, settling in Winnipeg, Manitoba. His early years were spent mostly in Canada, with some vacation time in Cuba, but that changed when he got to fourth grade.
“When I was little, I got to go for three months and spend a lot of time in Cuba,” Froese explained. “But then when I got old enough, my mom wanted me to learn Spanish and be fluent, then be able to read and write it. So I went there and I studied there and went to a special sports school. I played like any other kid. I wore a uniform to school every day and everything. Just in the regular system like all the other boys and learned.”
Living with his aunt, Froese spent fourt hgrade and part of fifth grade, then headed back to Canada for grades 6, 7 and 8. His parents stayed back in Canada but visited when they could, and he tried to spend his summers in Manitoba.
“I didn't know how to write in Spanish or read or any of that. I knew the language and how to talk it; I just didn't know any of the reading or writing,” Froese said. “My soccer coach at the time, Orlando, took it upon himself to teach me how to read and write, and my math at the time was behind because their school system's more advanced, and I just caught up.”
Part of that learning was also focused on developing his soccer skills. In contrast to some perceptions of Cuba, Froese says it's advanced in several areas – and youth soccer coaching is one of them.
“Overall, when I was younger, they took it a bit more serious," Froese explained. “Cubans, in comparison to Canadians, maybe you'd think Canada is better, but [in some things] Cuba beats Canada. So it just depends. I just think overall, it's a third-world country, and sometimes it just helps take your head off things playing a sport. It's just a little bit of a different mentality, in a sense.”
Froese returned to Canada full-time when he entered the Whitecaps Residency program in 2012. Faced with a number of options, Vancouver won out partly because of the proximity to his parents in Winnipeg, but partly because “it was a better pathway to be part of a professional team.”
He hasn't looked back since, going on to represent Canada at the FIFA U-17 World Cup in 2013 and signing his first pro deal last year.
Froese, along with fellow Residency alumnus Marco Bustos, began training with the Whitecaps first team long before he signed a full contract. Now, with more than a year in that environment under his belt, Froese's game has continued to advance.
“It really changes your way of thinking,” Froese said of training with the MLS squad. “When you're coming through from residency, you're playing, but you're younger. Results here matter. Your touches are important. You try not to give the ball away and you worry more about what's going to happen. Things mean a lot more, as opposed to residency, where it's go out and play and have fun.
“Here, senior players are on you and saying you need to do this better and you need to do that. You grow more, obviously. Everybody around you is trying to make you better, and you just want to be a part of it and help. It makes you better, and it makes you thrive if you take it on board.”
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Grabbing his first pro goal may have been a weight off Froese's shoulders, but now that he's got it, Robinson wants it to spur the 19-year-old on to even higher levels.
“I was delighted for Kianz, because he can tick that one off his list now. But I want him to kick on,” Robinson said this week. “I don't want him to be comfortable now that he's scored one goal. He's got to try and push the starting players for more starts in the team now, which I firmly believe he can.”
For Froese, that first MLS goal is just the next step in a long journey. He's taking nothing for granted and says he will not be taking his foot off the gas any time soon.
“There so many ways that I can improve,” he said. “My touch, my everything, essentially. I'm young, I'm 19, so my focus, my concentration. Just day to day, I need to continue to work hard and put in a shift and improve overall in general and become a better player.
“I'm nowhere near a finished product. Just because I've scored a goal, doesn't necessarily things should happen for me. I just need to continue to put my head down, and hopefully things fall into place.”
