This eight-year-old superstar striker is ready to take the soccer world by storm.
Sarnia’s Brianna Pfaff, a Grade 3 student at Cathcart Boulevard school, is already making waves in the local soccer community and beyond.
“She doesn’t ever want to come off the field. She’s like, ‘can I just stay for ten more minutes?’” Brianna’s mom Nicola Pfaff tells the Journal. “And even when their time is up on the field, she wants to kick the ball on the grass beside the training area.
“She just really loves soccer.”
Brianna started out in sports at a young age, following in the footsteps of her two older brothers – first, in hockey – she's currently the only girl on her Tier 1 MD Sarnia Sting travel hockey team.
Then she got involved in soccer at around age five or six, after watching some friends play the game.
“I was like, ‘that looks really interesting,’” Brianna explains. "And when I started playing, I was like, ‘I really love this; I want to keep doing it’ — and here I am.”
Brianna’s soccer journey began here in Sarnia, learning developmental skills with the Sarnia FC and Sarnia Girls Soccer Clubs.
Now, she’s on the roster for the Toronto FC London affiliate team, playing with and competing against other players who are two years older than she is — something that is not lost on the young soccer star.
“Sometimes we are equal, sometimes I’m catching up on them and sometimes they are catching up on me,” she says.
In the summer of 2023, Brianna attended a Real Madrid Foundation Clinic in Detroit, and from there, was selected to attend an elite, two-week soccer program in Spain this past February, called the “Real Madrid Female Experience.
“What they really wanted to do was provide an opportunity for strong girls,” Nicola explains. “So, female coaches and female chaperones were looking after the teams and they brought them to the Real Madrid training facility in Valdebebas.”
Brianna was among the youngest of the 63 girls on hand for the program, which included players from across the U.S.
That was an experience Brianna wouldn’t soon forget.
Along with scoring the first goal for her team, she got to attend a Real Madrid match against Sevilla La Liga, and loved every moment, noting it was ‘like an earthquake’ when the team scored.
But the trip highlight for Brianna was being named team captain for the last few games — an honour that her teammates and coaches chose.
“What they told me was that they liked what type of person she was with her teammates as well; it wasn’t just that she was doing well on the field — she was a really good teammate as well,” Nicola says, adding, “what I noticed was if they were taking a group picture, she would go and see if all the girls were there she would go and collect them so no one missed out.”
She also filled in an injury position for the team two years older in the Championship Avenza scrimmage, and, based on her strong performance at the Real Madrid Training, she received an invitation to be on a team at the 2025 Donosti Cup — a large soccer tournament in Southern Europe held in June.
Brianna’s family says they couldn’t be more proud of for her finding and exploring her passion.
As for what’s next, Brianna says she wants to continue playing the sport following in the footsteps of some of her favourite players like Lionel Messi and Christine Sinclair.
“I think she really stands out," Brianna says. "And a woman can be more than perfume and high heels."