The year that Jonathan David was born, Canada crashed out of qualification for the FIFA World Cup Korea/Japan 2002 without even reaching the final round of the Concacaf preliminaries.
A scoreless draw against Mexico, in front of barely 6,000 fans in Toronto, was the final nail in the coffin of another failed campaign. By the time the following edition of the global showpiece arrived, so too had a young David and his family in the nation for which he now stands as one of its finest football sons.
Born in New York to Haitian parents, in the first six years of his life David had bounced from the US to Port-au-Prince and then to Ottawa, where he first fell in love with the game. Two decades and 4,500 kilometres to the west, he played a starring role in what is Canadian football’s finest hour.
Appearing at just a third World Cup, until last week the nation had not so much as collected a single tournament point; that’s a mark that now stands at four after a remarkable 6-0 win against Qatar at BC Place Vancouver.
It’s a tournament-shaking, era-defining result that, as David exclusively told FIFA post-match, has the ability to re-shape how Canadians view the sport and their national team.
“This result, this team, it means everything. Obviously, we had the chance to play in the World Cup before but didn't win a game, didn't get a point. Now, in the first game we got a point, now we have a win. That’s a great step for what we can do going forward.
“What we’re trying to do and what this result means is that we can change the image of football in Canada.”
It was David, as much as anyone else, who played a starring role in helping to orchestrate this most extraordinary result. A goal midway through the opening term and then further strikes in additional time in both halves saw him become the first player since Geoff Hurst in 1966 to score a hat-trick on home soil.
In 90 minutes of football, he also single-handedly eclipsed Canada’s combined goal tally in their half a dozen tournament outings and now stands alone as his nation’s greatest World Cup goalscorer.
The story heading into the match though couldn’t have been more different. Coach Jesse Marsch was peppered with questions about the supposed slump his star forward was going through, with David having failed to score in his past four international outings.
Marsch’s response was somewhere between exasperated and visionary. “With that dude, he has scored a heck of a lot of goals for us. I know there’s some criticism or wherever, but since I’ve been here he leads the team in goals, assists, xG and every attacking category.
“He has scored in the biggest games, we want him to score, he has scored. By the end of his career he’ll have 60 goals or more so you better put your seat-belts on and get ready.”
By the end of 90 breathless minutes in Vancouver, the white-knuckle ride left a nation of 40 million, and, by-and-large, David himself, speechless.
“Well, it’s the job of strikers to score. If I don’t score there’s criticism and if I do, then it’s a different story.”
In a match marred by a serious injury to influential midfield tempo-setter Ismael Kone, Canada both sent records tumbling and moved themselves into a fine position to top Group B. Now sitting ahead of final-day foes Switzerland on goal difference, a win next week in Vancouver would see the Canadians remain in the city for the Round of 32, and potentially the Round of 16.
With a draw enough to carve out another slice of history, the approach, as David tells it, won’t change.
“We knew that goal difference would be important today and it’s put us in a good position. Now we have to approach the game against Switzerland the same way we approached the last two games.
“That means staying focussed and with nothing less than going into it trying to make sure we win.”
Credit: FIFA
