Dubai: Bayern Munich and Canada’s best Alphonso Davies was thrilled to put Canada on the world footballing map after being voted as the co-winner of the Lou Marsh Trophy as the best athlete in Canada.
Davies was named co-winner of the 2020 Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s best athlete alongside Laurent Duvernay-Tardif earlier this week.
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Davies who resides in Edmonton, Alberta, is a member of Canada men’s football team and plies his trade with Uefa Champions League winners Bayern Munich, while Duvernay-Tardif from Montreal is a Super Bowl winner with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Davies is the second football player to win the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s best athlete of the year, following in the steps of 2012 winner Christine Sinclair.
“I am truly honoured and humbled to have been selected as the co-winner for the 2020 Lou Marsh Trophy,” Davies said after being bestowed with the nation’s highest honour. “Canada welcomed me and my family and I am grateful for the opportunity to realise my dream of being a professional football player and representing Canada on the world stage. In this challenging year, it is nice to know that we were able to make Canadians proud with our accomplishments on and off the field.”
Davies was just 13 years old when he made his debut in the Canadian youth programme, in 2014. He was 16 years old when he made his international debut for the Canada ‘A’ team on June 13, 2017 becoming the youngest men’s national team player in the history of Canada. He scored his first goal for Canada on July 7, 2017 during the Concacaf Gold Cup.
On Thursday, the 20-year-old Bayern Munich prodigy and former Vancouver Whitecaps’ home-grown product achieved another landmark moment while becoming the first North American player to be voted onto the prestigious FIFPRO World 11, as voted on by his fellow professional soccer players.
Davies joined a group of some of the top players from across the globe in the World XI, including Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Sergio Ramos, Virgil van Dijk, Kevin de Bruyne, Thiago Alcantara, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, as well as Bayern teammates Robert Lewandowski and Joshua Kimmich.
Born to Liberian parents in Buduburam, a refugee camp in Ghana, Davies fled as a five-year-old from the Liberian capital of Monrovia to Canada during the Second Liberian Civil War. On June 6, 2017, he received Canadian citizenship and in the same year he donned Canadian national team colours.
Davies was part of Bayern’s streaks of 23 consecutive wins (from February 16 to September 24, 2020) and 32 undefeated matches (December 11 to September 24, 2020), which included the 2019-20 Bundesliga title, the German Cup, the Champions League crown in August and Super Cup in September.
Davies was the runner up for the Uefa Defender of the Year, shortlisted as a nominee for the Uefa Team of the Year, and the Tuttosport’s prestigious Golden Boy Award for U-21 players. He is a two-time winner of Canada Soccer’s ‘Canadian Player of the Year Award’, having previously won the honour in 2018 in the same year he won his first multi-sport award as the Postmedia Male Athlete of the Year.
Early in 2020, Davies became a Supporter of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, using his platforms and his public profile to raise awareness and fundraise in support of refugees. Davies has an incredible global audience with more than 3.2 million followers on Instagram and 2.9 million followers on TikTok.
