RIDE ALONG
‘I KNOW I’M THERE FOR HIM AND HE’S THERE FOR ME’
Life is moving at light speed for the Whitecaps’ rising star Alphonso Davies, but when the ride becomes too frenetic, he can always turn to club-mate and longtime friend Gloire Amanda
He’s only 16 but he already knows the drill. Keep your world small. Don’t give away too much of yourself. Maintain the laser focus.
“I’m just taking it all in,” Alphonso Davies says. “I just want to experience these amazing moments.”
And when things are coming at you at the speed of light, that’s the best approach. At least it’s the safest. One year ago, Davies was a relatively anonymous 15-year-old with Whitecaps FC2. Today, he’s the most talked-about soccer player this country has produced in a generation and Friday he makes his national team debut at the prestigious Gold Cup.
Beyond that, who knows? He’s already been scouted by Manchester United and Liverpool. He’s known to virtually every club in the soccer world. Sure, the Whitecaps try to control the buzz, but it can still drown out everything around the kid.
And that’s when he reaches out to the one person who understands Davies and the powerful forces that have shaped him.
“We played together, went to school together,” Davies says. “You have someone to talk to, to help you out; someone to show you. He’s like a big brother to me.”
Gloire (pronounced Glory) Amanda, plays for Whitecaps FC2 and, at 18, is the wise, old head of this partnership.
“Me and him have never really talked about where we came from,” Amanda says. “We both just know. Sometimes I think of it. But I know I’m there for him and he’s there for me.” Davies and Amanda met at the St. Nicholas Soccer Academy in Edmonton some five years ago when Amanda was, “the man,” and Davies was a skinny 11-year-old recruit heading into Grade 7.
Before that? Well, sit down. This takes some telling.
Davies was born in the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana after his parents, father Debeah and mother Victoria, fled a vicious civil war in Liberia, their home country. The move likely saved the family — Alphonso is the fourth youngest of six children.
As it was, this is how Debeah Davies describes life in the refugee camp.
“Every day we needed to make sure we have something for (Alphonso) to eat.”
When Alphonso was five the family was resettled in Windsor, Ont., then moved to Edmonton three years later.
“I don’t remember too much about it,” Alphonso says of Buduburam.
But he does remember a promise he made his mother. When he was recruited by the Whitecaps two years ago, he vowed he’d finish high school.
That was an opportunity he wouldn’t have been given in Ghana and an opportunity never presented to his parents.
“They wanted us to get the knowledge they’ve never gotten,” Alphonso says.
Amanda was born in the Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania and his family moved to Edmonton when he was eight. He spoke two languages when he started school in Canada: Swahili and Kibembe, his tribal language. English would come later.
“It took me a year before I could speak in sentences,” he said.
But soccer opened doors for him. He enrolled in St. Nicholas and was the best player at the Academy when Davies arrived in 2012. Motivated and mature beyond his years, Amanda might not have been blessed with his younger teammate’s natural ability but he made up for it in other areas.
“Gloire was a very, very hard worker,” said Marco Bassio, the program director at St. Nicholas.
The source of that ethic is also easy enough to identify.
“I never thought I’d be in Canada or living this life,” Amanda says. “I don’t take anything for granted. I know where I came from and I feel like I have to prove myself even more.”
As for Davies, Bassio saw him playing in Free Footie — a program that gives financially-challenged Edmonton kids a chance to play soccer — and encouraged him to apply to St. Nicholas. He arrived as a reedthin preteen in Grade 7.
Three years later, he had led his school to three consecutive city championships and was on his way to Vancouver.
“The things you see today, we saw on a smaller scale,” Bassio says. “I compare him to Connor McDavid. To do what he can do at high speed is incredible.”
He also has an ambition to match his talent. Amanda, who says Davies is the most driven person he’s ever met, recalls one school session where a teacher asked about each of the student’s goals.
“He said, ‘I’m going to be a professional soccer player,’ ” Amanda says. “Straight up. He was just a tiny kid but it was the way he said it. He was serious and I believed him.”
Craig Dalrymple, who recruited both Davies and Amanda as the technical director of the Whitecaps residency program, first saw Davies in 2014 at a one-week training camp. At that point, he was a decent prospect but, “didn’t really jump off the page,” Dalrymple says.
He came back nine months later and this time Davies did jump off the page.
“He’d changed dramatically,” Dalrymple says. So had everything around him.
The Whitecaps had a job convincing Victoria Davies they’d protect her son and make sure he finished high school. Despite her misgivings, she relented and let Alphonso join the residency program two years ago.
Last year, just after his 15th birthday, he signed his first pro contract and spent the year with Whitecaps FC2 while making a couple of appearances with the Major League Soccer team. This year, as a 16-year-old, he’s become a fixture on the senior squad while making the national team and becoming a Canadian citizen.
“Being called up to the national team, it’s amazing,” he says over the phone from the Canadian team training camp. “I’m really excited about this.”
As is everyone connected with the game in Canada. The next question is: How do you control all that excitement?
“I’ve been in the professional game for a long time,” says the 43-year-old Dalrymple. “In the last six months I’ve been to Holland, Poland, France and Spain and everyone says they have the next great player. But X happens or Y happens or Z happens and they don’t all turn out to be great players.
“Alphonso will run into those things. But whether it’s by luck or design he has really good people around him. He really doesn’t need a lot of advice.”
No, for all the hurdles he’s already faced, Davies understands he’s had help along the way, just as he understands people are drawn to his story.
But as remarkable as that story is to others, it makes perfect sense to him because he could see where he was going and who he was following.
“People tell me it’s inspirational,” Davies says “I’m glad I can inspire them. But it’s strange for me to hear that. This is my life. This is all I’ve known.
“Honestly, I just want to see where it takes me. Up, down, left, right. I don’t care. I just want to enjoy it.”
And share it with those who have been along for the journey.