With a break between winning a second Bundesliga championship and preparing for the resumption of the UEFA Champions League, Alphonso Davies took some time to let followers inside his mind during his rapid ascent from the Vancouver Whitecaps youth academy to one of the biggest clubs on the planet.
His story — as written in The Players' Tribune — includes an emotion many athletes will never freely admit: doubt.
"You might have read some stuff about me sometime in the last few years," he writes. "Like when I was 15: Davies becomes second-youngest player to play in MLS. Or when I was 17: Davies makes record-breaking transfer to Bayern Munich. I guess it must have looked like I was always going to make it. But that’s not how it was. Or at least that’s not how it felt."
Davies' success may have been predictable to outsiders, but in his own mind there were times he doubted he would ever be a professional, never mind one of the world's most talented young players.
Fortunately, there were others he could lean on for reinforcement — most notably former Whitecaps assistant and MLS defender Pa-Modou Kah.
