Sports fans love a young superstar, and right now Canadian NHL teams are basking in the glow of players such as Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine, and Connor McDavid as they ignite hopes that had been dormant for years in their hockey-crazed cities. 

But to have a teenage star turn heads in Canada because of his soccer skill is almost unheard of. Welcome 16-year-old Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Alphonso Davies to these uncharted waters.

Liberia-born and Edmonton-raised, Davies has arguably been the team’s top player in the three games they’ve played so far this season. His game blends pace, creativity on the ball and a soccer IQ far beyond his years.

He scored the winning goal and set up another in the team’s CONCACAF Champions League game versus the New York Red Bulls.

Afterward, Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch said of Davies: “He is good. Real good.”

Philadelphia Union head coach Jim Curtin – the youngest coach in MLS – didn’t hold back his enthusiasm after watching the youngest active player in the league for 90-plus minutes in the regular-season opener.

“Alphonso is not my player so I won’t speak too much of him, but he is incredible,” Curtin said. “The vast majority of my weeks leading up to this game was spent on how to shut down a 16-year-old kid.  That’s a compliment.”

Curtin’s team did limit the Whitecaps in a 0-0 draw, but Vancouver had one great chance, with Cristian Techera missing a glorious chance after a setup by Davies.

“He is a heck of a player,” Curtin said. “To see him run in person, how effortless it is, how powerful he is, and then to have the feet that he does... I don’t want to get carried away, but he has a heck of a future.”

The kid they call Fonzie gets more thumbs up then Henry Winkler in his prime. The challenge for the Whitecaps is to temper all the enthusiasm and keep everything as normal as possible. 

Head coach Carl Robinson makes sure the Grade 11 student gets his homework done, like every teenager, and that he knows hanging out at the mall is not an option for a professional soccer player.

“He has started off very well,” Robinson said ahead of the Union match. “It’s important we don’t get carried away.”

Robinson has heard stories of too many teenage stars who believed their hype, forgetting to put in the work before their career fizzles. He is doing everything he can to make sure that doesn’t happen with Davies. That’s why interviews with the teen are the exception, not the rule.

“I try to protect the boy,” Robinson told The Province last week. “It’s not about me. It’s not about supporters. It’s about the player. …He is a fantastic talent, we know that.” 

Those sentiments are echoed by new Whitecaps acquisition Fredy Montero, who made the move Davies will hope to follow one day, going from the MLS to Europe. 

“He is good and he has a lot of quality,” Montero said. “He is young. We have to take it easy with him, but he is working hard in every single training.”

Davies’s path to Vancouver through Edmonton has left a blazing soccer trail. He arrived with his family in Edmonton at the age of five. It didn’t take long for coaches in their youth system to recognize his talents. The Whitecaps invited him to join their residency program in the summer of 2015 when he was 14. He signed a United Soccer League pro contract with the team’s development squad, WFC2, in February of 2016.

Months later, he scored his first pro goal in the USL. Impressed with his quick progress, the first team signed him to an MLS contract. After some playing time off the bench, Davies became the second youngest player (behind Freddy Adu) to start an MLS game when he took to the pitch against Colorado last September at the age of 15.

He is on the national team radar, having been called up to Canada’s under-20 squad last March for a friendly against England. He also scored for the under-17 team in a friendly against Jamaica last November.

He is on the radar of others as well. Davies was fantastic in the minutes he played last summer in a friendly against Premier League club Crystal Palace. That performance caught the attention of former Whitecap Andy O’Brien, who was in town for the game working in his role as a scout for Liverpool.

Interview request from overseas are not uncommon. Most people feel Europe will be Davies’s next step.

The road will not be easy, but Davies has responded well to every mental and physical challenge he’s faced on the pitch in his young career. Those who know the game well say he has the potential to be special.

“Alfonso is hands down the best young talent I’ve played with throughout my career,” said Whitecaps defender Jordan Harvey, a veteran of 11 MLS seasons. “It’s kind of scary because he obviously has all the tools you want to see physically, but it’s the mental part of the game that is impressive. He gets it.”

The Vancouver Whitecaps face the San Jose Earthquakes Saturday night at 7 p.m. ET/10 p.m. PT on TSN 1 and 3