Next in line

Every season a batch of young and exciting players breaks through in the Champions League – and FedEx has been speaking to three on their way to the top. Here Jonathan David describes how he got this far, followed by the origin stories of two other stars in the making

WORDS Ian Holyman | PORTRAITS Scott Groult

Interview
This was my dream since I was young. Second game of the season, I’m on the bench at home and we’re losing. There are ten minutes to go and the coach decides to put me on. I don’t even think, ‘I have to try and score a goal.’ I just think, ‘Let me just go out there and try to have fun.’ Fortunately for me there was a cross, the ball came back to me and I just finished – it went in. At that moment I didn’t know what I was thinking; it was pure joy. I was just running around happy. I didn’t even realise what I had actually done. But I think it was the beginning of something really big.”

Jonathan David is looking back on his first game in Europe. His side, KRC Gent, were at home to Zulte Waregem on 4 August 2018, and he had just scored the 90th-minute equaliser to earn them a point. From the streets of Port-au-Prince via Ottawa to Genk, this kid was going places. Fast. His next stop was LOSC Lille – and a first shot at the Champions League last season. Another childhood dream realised. 

“The Champions League was just about watching it on TV – watching it at home with friends or my dad. Watching any game possible. The goal Ronaldinho scored [in 2004] against AC Milan, when he cut the ball with his right foot and finished with his left, and took his shirt off and celebrated. It’s something that comes to mind every time I think about the Champions League.” 

David also stored away information for future reference by “watching a little bit of Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o. Just those quick finishes – if it’s with the toe, the outside of the foot. The way Thierry Henry dropped off, dribbled with the ball, took on players. It’s watching the little details of their game, something you can take and put into yours.”

All that research paid off last season. David grasped his chance on the big stage, scoring three times in Group G – all in victories, against Sevilla, Wolfsburg and Salzburg – to help Lille reach the knockouts (in top spot, no less) for the first time in their history. “During the anthem you can just take in the atmosphere,” he says. “You feel it’s not regular, it’s a different game. It gives you goosebumps and makes you realise that you’re at the top of the game right now. I will never forget that feeling, especially as they were three important goals. The fact they helped us win three games makes them even more special.”

That last word is befitting of the 22-year-old himself. His route to the top has been exceptional, even by the itinerant standards of the modern footballer. He is an amalgamation of different worlds, a cultural chameleon who was born in Brooklyn and bred in Haiti (where his family are from) then Ottawa, before the big jump to Europe.

David is also atypical in that he didn’t embrace football from an early age – or at least, not the version with the round ball. While he remembers kicking one around on the streets of Haiti, it’s not a habit he initially stuck to. “When I was about six my family decided to move to Canada to try and live a better life,” he explains. “I didn’t really get involved with football when I first arrived; we used to play American football instead. I first got into football when I was ten – my dad decided to put me in a team.”

David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine.
“people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not how you play”

Good thinking, dad. From there David’s first significant steps in the Canadian game came at Ottawa Gloucester SC Hornets. He credits his then coach, Hanny El-Magraby, for helping him develop the sting in his game. “He was my coach throughout all the years until I was 17 and moved to Gent,” he says. “Not just on the pitch: he helped me a lot in life in general because he was like a father to me. He gave me a lot of advice. Even when we were 11, his message to our group was, ‘I’m trying to develop players to play in Europe. Not to go to the MLS academies, but go to Europe and make a career.’”

Initially it looked like David might struggle to fulfil his coach’s aims. The striker naturally sparked interest from across the pond; his pace, dribbling skills, ability to shoot with either foot and heightened nose for goal made sure of that. But initial trials with Salzburg and Stuttgart were short-lived; neither were convinced that the Canadian could make the transatlantic leap. 

David soon proved them wrong. He joined Gent in January 2018 and, in the space of 12 days at the start of the 2018/19 season, made his debut for the Belgian club, played just over an hour of competitive football in four matches and scored five times. He finished his first season in European football with 12 goals in 33 league matches. 

The next campaign was marked by tragedy, with David’s mother Rose dying of cancer in 2019 when he was still just a teenager. Despite that he managed to finish the season as joint-leading scorer in the Belgian top flight with 18 goals, prompting LOSC to pounce. 

David is softly spoken. He is almost shy in conversation, happy to let team-mates set the tone in the dressing room. His involvement in the Haitian Initiative gives an insight into his personality. The charity provides coaching, food and education for young footballers from Port-au-Prince’s impoverished Cité Soleil shanty town. 

“It’s important to help people who don’t have the same opportunities that you have,” he says. “It’s just to give back to the community. Haiti is where I’m from, so obviously I want to help them. It’s only the beginning but I’m working on different things. I think it goes back to what my coach told me at first. Football is important but he said, ‘Being a good man is always the most important thing.’ Because people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not necessarily how you play on the pitch.”

It’s an approach that has impressed David’s subsequent coaches. “He has everything to become a star in world football, not just as an athlete but also because of his personality,” said Gent’s then manager Jess Thorup. “David never focuses on his success, but the success of his team; to have such a mindset as a 20-year-old earns my respect.”     

David has also been able to transfer his success at club level to the international stage. It’s no surprise that with 21 goals in 32 appearances for Canada, national team coach John Herdman considers his forward to be “an absolute gift. What I like about Jonathan is the fact that he is so grounded. I call him the Iceman. You can see he comes from a solid family who have good values. He is not going to get carried away – and I think that will be the difference for him.”

The Iceman will be hoping for a hot streak in sweltering Qatar come November, when Canada will kick-off against Belgium for their first World Cup appearance in 36 years. David scored five in helping his country qualify this time around and will be keen to score Canada’s first goal at the tournament (the Mexico ’86 run-out saw the team shooting blanks). He’ll have lightning-quick Bayern München star Alphonso Davies looking to provide the ammunition; the full-back burst onto the Champions League scene in 2019/20 and was the first Canadian European Cup winner by the end of that season. 

So that’s two Canadians flying the flag in Europe, but David didn’t get swept up by the hype at Gent – and nor did he let his head go down when his goalscoring touch deserted him at LOSC. “It took time to adapt,” he says, reflecting on his 13-game drought at the start of the 2020/21 season. It would have shredded the confidence of many others, particularly when you consider he had been bought for what was then a club-record fee. “It was about putting the work in. So sometimes after training I’d stay and work on my finishing or dribbling. Just different types of things to make sure that when I got to the game, I was sharper and ready. And, obviously, eventually it did pay off.”

David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine. “When I arrived I didn’t have that killer mentality,” said David. “The coach helped me by playing me, by repeating that he had faith in me, that I was doing the right things and that they would pay off. If you don’t demand a lot of yourself then nobody is going to demand anything from you. You have to be the one trying to push yourself forward; you cannot rely on anybody else to do that.”

David has been true to his word: last season he kicked on again by scoring 15 league goals – his best return in Ligue 1 – as well as those three in the Champions League. “I always like to work on my shooting technique, on driving with the ball, on being more dangerous with the ball at my feet and taking on defenders. And afterwards, you just have to try and implement it in games. 

“You have to be willing to try it in games, to have the guts to see how it goes. If you don’t do it, it’s never going to come off and you’re training for nothing.” Somehow we get the feeling that this guy has plenty to play for.

Jonathan David is looking back on his first game in Europe. His side, KRC Gent, were at home to Zulte Waregem on 4 August 2018, and he had just scored the 90th-minute equaliser to earn them a point. From the streets of Port-au-Prince via Ottawa to Genk, this kid was going places. Fast. His next stop was LOSC Lille – and a first shot at the Champions League last season. Another childhood dream realised. 

“The Champions League was just about watching it on TV – watching it at home with friends or my dad. Watching any game possible. The goal Ronaldinho scored [in 2004] against AC Milan, when he cut the ball with his right foot and finished with his left, and took his shirt off and celebrated. It’s something that comes to mind every time I think about the Champions League.” 

David also stored away information for future reference by “watching a little bit of Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o. Just those quick finishes – if it’s with the toe, the outside of the foot. The way Thierry Henry dropped off, dribbled with the ball, took on players. It’s watching the little details of their game, something you can take and put into yours.”

All that research paid off last season. David grasped his chance on the big stage, scoring three times in Group G – all in victories, against Sevilla, Wolfsburg and Salzburg – to help Lille reach the knockouts (in top spot, no less) for the first time in their history. “During the anthem you can just take in the atmosphere,” he says. “You feel it’s not regular, it’s a different game. It gives you goosebumps and makes you realise that you’re at the top of the game right now. I will never forget that feeling, especially as they were three important goals. The fact they helped us win three games makes them even more special.”

That last word is befitting of the 22-year-old himself. His route to the top has been exceptional, even by the itinerant standards of the modern footballer. He is an amalgamation of different worlds, a cultural chameleon who was born in Brooklyn and bred in Haiti (where his family are from) then Ottawa, before the big jump to Europe.

David is also atypical in that he didn’t embrace football from an early age – or at least, not the version with the round ball. While he remembers kicking one around on the streets of Haiti, it’s not a habit he initially stuck to. “When I was about six my family decided to move to Canada to try and live a better life,” he explains. “I didn’t really get involved with football when I first arrived; we used to play American football instead. I first got into football when I was ten – my dad decided to put me in a team.”

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David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine.
“people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not how you play”

Good thinking, dad. From there David’s first significant steps in the Canadian game came at Ottawa Gloucester SC Hornets. He credits his then coach, Hanny El-Magraby, for helping him develop the sting in his game. “He was my coach throughout all the years until I was 17 and moved to Gent,” he says. “Not just on the pitch: he helped me a lot in life in general because he was like a father to me. He gave me a lot of advice. Even when we were 11, his message to our group was, ‘I’m trying to develop players to play in Europe. Not to go to the MLS academies, but go to Europe and make a career.’”

Initially it looked like David might struggle to fulfil his coach’s aims. The striker naturally sparked interest from across the pond; his pace, dribbling skills, ability to shoot with either foot and heightened nose for goal made sure of that. But initial trials with Salzburg and Stuttgart were short-lived; neither were convinced that the Canadian could make the transatlantic leap. 

David soon proved them wrong. He joined Gent in January 2018 and, in the space of 12 days at the start of the 2018/19 season, made his debut for the Belgian club, played just over an hour of competitive football in four matches and scored five times. He finished his first season in European football with 12 goals in 33 league matches. 

The next campaign was marked by tragedy, with David’s mother Rose dying of cancer in 2019 when he was still just a teenager. Despite that he managed to finish the season as joint-leading scorer in the Belgian top flight with 18 goals, prompting LOSC to pounce. 

David is softly spoken. He is almost shy in conversation, happy to let team-mates set the tone in the dressing room. His involvement in the Haitian Initiative gives an insight into his personality. The charity provides coaching, food and education for young footballers from Port-au-Prince’s impoverished Cité Soleil shanty town. 

“It’s important to help people who don’t have the same opportunities that you have,” he says. “It’s just to give back to the community. Haiti is where I’m from, so obviously I want to help them. It’s only the beginning but I’m working on different things. I think it goes back to what my coach told me at first. Football is important but he said, ‘Being a good man is always the most important thing.’ Because people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not necessarily how you play on the pitch.”

It’s an approach that has impressed David’s subsequent coaches. “He has everything to become a star in world football, not just as an athlete but also because of his personality,” said Gent’s then manager Jess Thorup. “David never focuses on his success, but the success of his team; to have such a mindset as a 20-year-old earns my respect.”     

David has also been able to transfer his success at club level to the international stage. It’s no surprise that with 21 goals in 32 appearances for Canada, national team coach John Herdman considers his forward to be “an absolute gift. What I like about Jonathan is the fact that he is so grounded. I call him the Iceman. You can see he comes from a solid family who have good values. He is not going to get carried away – and I think that will be the difference for him.”

The Iceman will be hoping for a hot streak in sweltering Qatar come November, when Canada will kick-off against Belgium for their first World Cup appearance in 36 years. David scored five in helping his country qualify this time around and will be keen to score Canada’s first goal at the tournament (the Mexico ’86 run-out saw the team shooting blanks). He’ll have lightning-quick Bayern München star Alphonso Davies looking to provide the ammunition; the full-back burst onto the Champions League scene in 2019/20 and was the first Canadian European Cup winner by the end of that season. 

So that’s two Canadians flying the flag in Europe, but David didn’t get swept up by the hype at Gent – and nor did he let his head go down when his goalscoring touch deserted him at LOSC. “It took time to adapt,” he says, reflecting on his 13-game drought at the start of the 2020/21 season. It would have shredded the confidence of many others, particularly when you consider he had been bought for what was then a club-record fee. “It was about putting the work in. So sometimes after training I’d stay and work on my finishing or dribbling. Just different types of things to make sure that when I got to the game, I was sharper and ready. And, obviously, eventually it did pay off.”

David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine. “When I arrived I didn’t have that killer mentality,” said David. “The coach helped me by playing me, by repeating that he had faith in me, that I was doing the right things and that they would pay off. If you don’t demand a lot of yourself then nobody is going to demand anything from you. You have to be the one trying to push yourself forward; you cannot rely on anybody else to do that.”

David has been true to his word: last season he kicked on again by scoring 15 league goals – his best return in Ligue 1 – as well as those three in the Champions League. “I always like to work on my shooting technique, on driving with the ball, on being more dangerous with the ball at my feet and taking on defenders. And afterwards, you just have to try and implement it in games. 

“You have to be willing to try it in games, to have the guts to see how it goes. If you don’t do it, it’s never going to come off and you’re training for nothing.” Somehow we get the feeling that this guy has plenty to play for.

Jonathan David is looking back on his first game in Europe. His side, KRC Gent, were at home to Zulte Waregem on 4 August 2018, and he had just scored the 90th-minute equaliser to earn them a point. From the streets of Port-au-Prince via Ottawa to Genk, this kid was going places. Fast. His next stop was LOSC Lille – and a first shot at the Champions League last season. Another childhood dream realised. 

“The Champions League was just about watching it on TV – watching it at home with friends or my dad. Watching any game possible. The goal Ronaldinho scored [in 2004] against AC Milan, when he cut the ball with his right foot and finished with his left, and took his shirt off and celebrated. It’s something that comes to mind every time I think about the Champions League.” 

David also stored away information for future reference by “watching a little bit of Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o. Just those quick finishes – if it’s with the toe, the outside of the foot. The way Thierry Henry dropped off, dribbled with the ball, took on players. It’s watching the little details of their game, something you can take and put into yours.”

All that research paid off last season. David grasped his chance on the big stage, scoring three times in Group G – all in victories, against Sevilla, Wolfsburg and Salzburg – to help Lille reach the knockouts (in top spot, no less) for the first time in their history. “During the anthem you can just take in the atmosphere,” he says. “You feel it’s not regular, it’s a different game. It gives you goosebumps and makes you realise that you’re at the top of the game right now. I will never forget that feeling, especially as they were three important goals. The fact they helped us win three games makes them even more special.”

That last word is befitting of the 22-year-old himself. His route to the top has been exceptional, even by the itinerant standards of the modern footballer. He is an amalgamation of different worlds, a cultural chameleon who was born in Brooklyn and bred in Haiti (where his family are from) then Ottawa, before the big jump to Europe.

David is also atypical in that he didn’t embrace football from an early age – or at least, not the version with the round ball. While he remembers kicking one around on the streets of Haiti, it’s not a habit he initially stuck to. “When I was about six my family decided to move to Canada to try and live a better life,” he explains. “I didn’t really get involved with football when I first arrived; we used to play American football instead. I first got into football when I was ten – my dad decided to put me in a team.”

David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine.
“people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not how you play”

Good thinking, dad. From there David’s first significant steps in the Canadian game came at Ottawa Gloucester SC Hornets. He credits his then coach, Hanny El-Magraby, for helping him develop the sting in his game. “He was my coach throughout all the years until I was 17 and moved to Gent,” he says. “Not just on the pitch: he helped me a lot in life in general because he was like a father to me. He gave me a lot of advice. Even when we were 11, his message to our group was, ‘I’m trying to develop players to play in Europe. Not to go to the MLS academies, but go to Europe and make a career.’”

Initially it looked like David might struggle to fulfil his coach’s aims. The striker naturally sparked interest from across the pond; his pace, dribbling skills, ability to shoot with either foot and heightened nose for goal made sure of that. But initial trials with Salzburg and Stuttgart were short-lived; neither were convinced that the Canadian could make the transatlantic leap. 

David soon proved them wrong. He joined Gent in January 2018 and, in the space of 12 days at the start of the 2018/19 season, made his debut for the Belgian club, played just over an hour of competitive football in four matches and scored five times. He finished his first season in European football with 12 goals in 33 league matches. 

The next campaign was marked by tragedy, with David’s mother Rose dying of cancer in 2019 when he was still just a teenager. Despite that he managed to finish the season as joint-leading scorer in the Belgian top flight with 18 goals, prompting LOSC to pounce. 

David is softly spoken. He is almost shy in conversation, happy to let team-mates set the tone in the dressing room. His involvement in the Haitian Initiative gives an insight into his personality. The charity provides coaching, food and education for young footballers from Port-au-Prince’s impoverished Cité Soleil shanty town. 

“It’s important to help people who don’t have the same opportunities that you have,” he says. “It’s just to give back to the community. Haiti is where I’m from, so obviously I want to help them. It’s only the beginning but I’m working on different things. I think it goes back to what my coach told me at first. Football is important but he said, ‘Being a good man is always the most important thing.’ Because people remember you by the way you are and how you act, not necessarily how you play on the pitch.”

It’s an approach that has impressed David’s subsequent coaches. “He has everything to become a star in world football, not just as an athlete but also because of his personality,” said Gent’s then manager Jess Thorup. “David never focuses on his success, but the success of his team; to have such a mindset as a 20-year-old earns my respect.”     

David has also been able to transfer his success at club level to the international stage. It’s no surprise that with 21 goals in 32 appearances for Canada, national team coach John Herdman considers his forward to be “an absolute gift. What I like about Jonathan is the fact that he is so grounded. I call him the Iceman. You can see he comes from a solid family who have good values. He is not going to get carried away – and I think that will be the difference for him.”

The Iceman will be hoping for a hot streak in sweltering Qatar come November, when Canada will kick-off against Belgium for their first World Cup appearance in 36 years. David scored five in helping his country qualify this time around and will be keen to score Canada’s first goal at the tournament (the Mexico ’86 run-out saw the team shooting blanks). He’ll have lightning-quick Bayern München star Alphonso Davies looking to provide the ammunition; the full-back burst onto the Champions League scene in 2019/20 and was the first Canadian European Cup winner by the end of that season. 

So that’s two Canadians flying the flag in Europe, but David didn’t get swept up by the hype at Gent – and nor did he let his head go down when his goalscoring touch deserted him at LOSC. “It took time to adapt,” he says, reflecting on his 13-game drought at the start of the 2020/21 season. It would have shredded the confidence of many others, particularly when you consider he had been bought for what was then a club-record fee. “It was about putting the work in. So sometimes after training I’d stay and work on my finishing or dribbling. Just different types of things to make sure that when I got to the game, I was sharper and ready. And, obviously, eventually it did pay off.”

David scored 13 league goals as LOSC won the title for the first time in a decade in 2021, flourishing under coach Christophe Galtier. The man who has just taken over at Paris Saint-Germain turned his young striker into a goalscoring machine. “When I arrived I didn’t have that killer mentality,” said David. “The coach helped me by playing me, by repeating that he had faith in me, that I was doing the right things and that they would pay off. If you don’t demand a lot of yourself then nobody is going to demand anything from you. You have to be the one trying to push yourself forward; you cannot rely on anybody else to do that.”

David has been true to his word: last season he kicked on again by scoring 15 league goals – his best return in Ligue 1 – as well as those three in the Champions League. “I always like to work on my shooting technique, on driving with the ball, on being more dangerous with the ball at my feet and taking on defenders. And afterwards, you just have to try and implement it in games. 

“You have to be willing to try it in games, to have the guts to see how it goes. If you don’t do it, it’s never going to come off and you’re training for nothing.” Somehow we get the feeling that this guy has plenty to play for.

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