Debbieh Davis remembers guns — not their crack, but their presence as a fact of daily life in Monrovia, they made everything right. You ate as they said. According to them you have moved on. You knew whether your children would survive according to them.
When the Second Liberian Civil War arrived at his family’s doorstep, Debeh and Victoria fled to Buduburam, a refugee camp in Ghana. They built a life in a tin shack no bigger than a minivan. Their fourth youngest child was born there on November 2, 2000 and was named Alfonso.
Less than one percent of the world’s refugees are resettled each year. In 2005, Debeh’s family was among those ranks. A country called Canada said yes. They moved to Edmonton, where a shy boy with broken English started kicking a ball around with the other kids because everyone already spoke the same language.
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On Sunday, at the Los Angeles Stadium, Alphonso Davies – Canada’s captain, Champions League winner, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, former resident of the Buduburam refugee camp – made his first World Cup appearance after missing the group stage with a hamstring injury. He came forward and Canada was transformed. They won 1-0, with Stefan Eustaquio – who had lost both parents in the previous 12 months – scoring in the 92nd minute. They are in the round of 16 for the first time in their history.
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In goal that night was Milan Borjan, whose family fled the Croatian War of Independence and settled in Canada when he was 13, first in Winnipeg, then in Hamilton. After Canada’s win over the United States in January 2022, he put it simply: “Canada gave everything to my family. When someone gives you that much love, you have to give it back.”
Canada beat South Africa to advance to the round of 16 of the FIFA World Cup. (AP)
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There was a moment in Vancouver ten days ago that says everything about this team. Nathan Saliba – 22, from Montreal, whose father Claude played football in Haiti – just scored Canada’s fourth goal in a 6-0 win over Qatar, their first World Cup victory. He ran to the corner and picked up a jersey with the number 8 on it. The number was not his. It was Ismail Kon, stretchered off 40 minutes earlier with a broken tibia and fibula.
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Who was born in Abidjan. He was seven years old when his mother, Suzanne Diamande, landed at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport with her most precious possession: her seven-year-old son. She said, “First of all I have come to give my son a better life CBC the game
He grew up in Montreal, learned to play in a neighborhood park and became the tournament’s best midfielder before a knee-high tackle ended his World Cup. He was man of the match before being dismissed.
Jonathan David scored a hat-trick that evening. Haitian parents, Brooklyn born, Port-au-Prince childhood, Ottawa youth football, rejected by Salzburg and Stuttgart, Belgian club Gent took a chance. His mother Rose died of cancer before he was 20 years old. By then he was in Belgium. Years later, after scoring the 84th-minute winner against Bordeaux for Lille, he ran to the sidelines where someone handed him a pink rose. He pressed it to his face and held it out to the crowd—her name and her flower.
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After the Qatar match, on Granville Street in Vancouver, the crowd was so dense that no one could move. Qatari supporter Abdullah Alaji had flown 16 hours to watch his team. He walked through the red-covered crowd in his white dress and told those around him that it was the worst match Qatar had ever played.
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This team did it for the city. Men from Liberia, Serbia, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Portugal, Nigeria, England and every province in Canada – including a 20-year-old from Montreal who emailed his way onto the roster with ease. This football team is unlike anything that has represented Canada on a major sporting stage before – and for the millions of Canadians who carry their family’s football story, that’s no small feat.
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At 17, Alphonso Davies stood before FIFA delegates, braces on his teeth, voice cracking, lobbying for North America’s World Cup bid. He said: “We were welcomed by a country called Canada, and the boys on the football team made me feel at home. My dream is to play in the World Cup one day.”
Debah Davis once said that Canada has done a lot for his family. Every time their son steps on the pitch, it’s there for them.
His family’s hut in Buduburam was no bigger than a minivan. You cannot fully repay such a loan.
But you can take it to the pitch.