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CANADA. — Canadian League1 Ontario side FC London has added another highly-rated youngster amid an ambitious squad build for the 2023 football season.

The Ontario-based club has confirmed the acquisition of Darlington Murasiranwa, a Canadian-Zimbabwean goalkeeper who made 14 appearances for FC Edmonton last season.

The new FC London goalkeeper was born in Zimbabwe, but began his footballing career in South Africa with the Barca Juniors. He moved to Edmonton when he was 13 to reunite with his parents, splitting his time between the FC Edmonton and Vancouver Whitecaps academy systems before turning professional in Alberta.

The Eddies formally signed the youngster ahead of the 2021 CPL season, where he secured one clean sheet in six appearances.

He was one of only two players retained for the club’s final season, with the 22-year-old featuring heavily in the latter half of the campaign. He tallied two clean sheets in fourteen appearances, and left with a second year of professional football under his belt.

“When we gave him the opportunity at the end of the season, he grabbed it,” said Eddie’s head coach Alan Koch at the season’s end. “You can see all the potential that he has, he’s a supreme athlete, a supreme competitor.” Darlington won’t be the only former Eddies youngster to play for FC London year, with defender Kelsey Egwu also joining the side for its 2023 campaign.

The club had a difficult campaign last year and found itself near the bottom of the table, with a Herculean effort now needed if the team is to land in League1 Ontario’s top flight when a multi-tiered league format is introduced next year.

“Darlington is someone who will raise the entire level in training,” says head coach Yiannis Tsalatsidis, who revealed that the youngster will join the club this week. — Agencies