Jonathan David will be the trump card of Losc this Wednesday in Wolfsburg in a decisive match for the qualification for the round of 16 of the Champions League.
Top scorer in Ligue 1, the 21-year-old flourished in Lille after a complicated start.
What to make proud Canada where the player has become a real star.
No stress.
If the Losc plays a capital match this Wednesday (9 p.m.) in Wolfsburg where he must not lose to go to the knockout stages of the Champions League, the pressure seems to flow on Jonathan David.
At 21, the Losc striker is not the type to panic before one of the most important matches in the history of the club.
“In Ghent (where David played from 2018 to 2020), he spent his time sleeping, which made his teammates laugh a lot, who chastised him a lot about it.
He had also declared later that the nap was one of his passions, ”laughs Christophe Franken, head of the column for the Belgian daily
La Derniere Heure
.
A childhood between New York, Port-au-Prince and Ottawa
Renowned for his cool attitude, the Losc striker is unanimous wherever he goes. “He is a very humble person on whom everything slips. He is the ideal son-in-law. He has a perfect image. He fights on the field and does not make people talk about him outside, ”says Anthony Rimasson, former technical director of the Quebec club of Longueuil. “It probably comes from his North American culture. They have a capacity to show a lot of openness, ”continues the man who is now director of the Brittany hope for women at the FFF.
An open-mindedness that David developed by traveling around the American continent.
Born in New York, he spent his childhood in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti.
There, he discovered the passion for football.
Then at six, headed for Canada and its capital Ottawa.
In the homeland of hockey, it's not easy to exist when you are a footballer and train under domes half the year because of the polar temperatures.
The leading figure in Canadian football
And yet, it is the portrait of Lille which is now plastered on the posters in 4X3 of Toronto and Vancouver when the national team arrives there to play its qualifying for the World Cup 2022. Leader of the Concacaf zone six days from the end , the Reds have never been so close to regaining the World Cup… 36 years after their sole participation in Mexico. What to find pride in part thanks to the national striker.
“By winning in Europe, Jonathan David has put the country ahead.
He has clearly become the leading figure in Canadian football.
He's the one who sells the shirts and brings people to the stadium, ”assures Anthony Rimasson.
“It's quite difficult for a Canadian to be successful in Europe.
A European club will prefer to take an average Brazilian rather than a very good Canadian because there is no guarantee.
But now, with David, recruiters are starting to go and see what's going on in Canada.
He became a Canadian ambassador for European success ”.
Arrived anonymously in Europe
To get there, David the traveler had to leave the country with the maple leaf very early. Trained in Ottawa, the kid quickly entered the national youth selections. But it is a meeting that will take off his career. At 16, David met Nick Mavromara. Whoever will become his agent sends him to test in Europe. If Salzburg and Stuttgart close their doors to him, the Belgians of La Gantoise welcome him in January 2018 in the strictest anonymity. Christophe Franken remembers. “At the time, we therefore did a little brief to say that a Canadian hopeful had signed in Ghent. If it had been a Brazilian hope, it would undoubtedly have caught the eye a little more, but the fact that he is Canadian meant that his arrival went almost unnoticed ”.
The biggest transfer in the history of Losc and the Belgian championship
It will take six months for David to finally make the headlines.
Then, the machine starts and will not stop.
14 goals in the first season, 23 pawns in the second year, however aborted in March due to the Covid.
Obviously, all of Europe is tearing itself apart.
But it is finally at Losc color trading of Gérard Lopez and Luis Campos, located an hour from Ghent, that the player arrives in the summer of 2020 for 27 million euros (bonus included).
Both the biggest transfer in the history of Losc and the Belgian championship.
A sign too heavy to wear on his debut in Ligue 1.
From the first few months in the North
Because David will live the first complicated months in the North.
Overweight, not in the rhythm, lost on the ground the Canadian foils and is even whistled by the Pierre Mauroy stadium.
We will have to wait until mid-November before seeing him score his first goal under the northerly colors.
Since then, the striker has largely made up for lost time.
“Finally, his complicated debut in Lille may have been his strength.
He has been criticized a lot for his lack of efficiency but he regained his confidence which proves that he is a player with character ”greeted Grégory Tafforeau, former captain of Losc and consultant for
France Bleu Nord
.
Top scorer in Ligue 1
In the shadow of Burak Yilmaz last season when Losc went looking for an improbable French league title, David has become the boss of the Northerner attack this season.
Top scorer in Ligue 1 with 11 goals in 17 days, the Canadian has bluffed everyone in the North at not even 22 years old.
"No matter what I look for, I don't have a negative element to tell you about him", admitted Jocelyn Gourvennec on November 23 after a new decisive goal by the player in November against Salzburg (1-0)
“He is still very young but he plays like an old man.
He is still at the start of his career but he will be a great player.
It shows so much.
He's a boy who doesn't have to be said twice.
When we have players like that, it's a great chance, ”relishes the Lille coach who knows that the love story may not last.
Considering his performances, the striker should not make old bones in the North.
More than ever, Jonathan David is clearly ahead of meeting his promises.
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