Keido Pour, Ansu Toure's nephew, is heading to Vancouver for a trial
BY MARC WEBER
According to Vancouver Whitecaps winger Ansu Toure, the club could soon be getting a better, younger version of him.
Toure's nephew, 18-year-old Keido Pour, is expected to arrive in Vancouver as soon as this week for a trial with the USL-1 club, a club official confirmed.
The Minnesota StarTribune selected Pour as the top high school player in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in 2007 after he scored 37 goals and added 19 assists in his senior year at St. Bernard's High School.
His high school coach called him the best played he'd seen in the Twin Cities in 15 years.
According to the paper, he was offered full-ride NCAA Division 1 scholarships from Marquette, Drexel, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Vermont and Valparaiso, but decided to seek a professional contract.
"He's a great attacking player -- left footed but he can use both feet," said Toure. "He's better than me. I say that because when I was 18, I wasn't as good as him. He's still so young." Pour showed off his skills to Major League Soccer club D.C. United at a combine before the 2008 season but decided to test his European options. After a trial with German Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund in early 2008, he settled in Chicago to train for a few months before returning to Minnesota.
Toure said Pour has had plenty of offers but he's waiting for the right opportunity. He's encouraged him to come to Vancouver.
Toure actually calls Pour his brother. Toure's parents -- Esther and Abdoulaye -- are Pour's grandparents, but they raised him from when he was a baby in Monrovia, Liberia.
Together the family fled civil war there, living in refugee camps in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ghana before eventually settling in Minnesota in 1998.
Toure wasn't in the Whitecaps' 18-man roster Saturday night, but the talented left-side attacking midfielder is close to returning to game action. He's been out for a month after knee surgery.
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