He would score bags of goals, earn a transfer to a top European league and play for Canada at the 2026 World Cup. There was just one problem: apart from his parents, teammates and coaches, no one in soccer seemed to know his name. It was 2023, and the striker was scrapping for minutes in Estonia’s Meistriliiga – a league small enough that streaming services didn’t bother with its matches.
He was 22 and already a football nomad. He had been cut from his home town club’s academy. Passed over by NCAA college programs.
Relegated to the reserve squad of almost every club he played for. Even to an optimist, the prospect of playing at a World Cup – let alone a move to the Premier League – was about as distant as Brighton’s shores from David’s home town of Brampton, Ontario. But then, David has never minded the road less travelled.
This past summer, Promise David became the fifth Canadian ever to score at a men’s World Cup. Another appearance in 2030 seems likely. Even to those who have known the wandering striker since the beginning, his rapid ascent has defied expectations.
And now the biggest question is what comes next. David, born Promise Oluwatobi Emmanuel David Akinpelu, is used to being overlooked. He was cut from Toronto FC’s academy at age 15.
He was a riddle for coaches: smart and preternaturally gifted, but – like many a teenager – unfocused. He was “never on time for anything”, laughs Jorden Feliciano, who coached a teenaged David at Vaughan SC, where he played after getting cut by Toronto FC. Still, Feliciano says, “the kid could turn it on when he wanted”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
