Canada’s Promise David is confident he can thrive in his new life in England

He’s only played 23 minutes for his new club and is yet to register a shot on goal, but Canada’s newest Premier League footballer is already becoming something of a recognizable face on the south coast of England.

“Are you Promise David?” asks a server upon entering a popular Brighton restaurant last week. While he answers in the affirmative, the Canadian men’s national team striker hopes that he can stay off the radar for as long as possible – admittedly easier said than done as a 6-foot-5 man with team colour-co-ordinated hair elastics who likes to zip around town on a rented e-scooter.

“I would hate to be so famous that I can’t go do my side quests in peace,” he says, referring to his non-soccer-related activities, which include train trips to London, comedy clubs, shopping for anime, and, apparently, dinner with Globe and Mail sportswriters.

Still, his burgeoning level of notoriety hasn’t stopped the forward, currently on loan with Brighton and Hove Albion, from getting out and about. The only things that have gotten in the way are some of his personal phobias and peccadilloes.

His fear of heights has prevented him from scaling the i360, the city’s quarter-scale version of the CN Tower, and while he enjoys hanging out by the seafront, he doesn’t swim, and won’t be sampling fish and chips any time soon. “Not a fish guy,” he says.

And it’s not just sea life that gives him the creeps. During the photo shoot before dinner, he did his best to keep a calm demeanour while a Brightonian walked her dog behind him.

“One of my biggest fears is dogs,” he says. “I’ve ended friendships over animals.”

There is no sign of nervousness once he gets on the pitch, however. Despite the recent lack of minutes, David, who goes by the name of Tobi among friends, has the utmost confidence about his ability to put the ball in the net.

“I just know if you give me a 30 piece, I’ll score,” David says. “Thirty minutes in a game that it’s either tied or we’re winning, I’ll add another one.”

That helped fuel his rise over the past three years, which saw him parlay a peripatetic career in the Maltese and Estonian leagues to netting goals in the Champions League and the World Cup.

His exploits for Canada this summer, where he scored a highlight-reel goal against Switzerland, as well as scoring 41 times in 82 matches since 2024 for Royale Union St. Galloise in Belgium, thrust him into soccer’s global shop window.

Brighton and Hove Albion, currently fifth in the Premier League, had been tracking him for some time, and signed the 25-year-old on a year-long loan last month with an obligation to buy for £22-million ($41.2-million) if certain performance criteria are met. That would make him the second-most expensive Canadian player of all time, behind only Jonathan David’s US$34-million move to Lille six years ago.

The scale of the task isn’t lost on David, who successfully predicted he would score against either Qatar or Switzerland at the World Cup in the summer.

“It’s not like I was saying it like I was fortune telling,” he says of his World Cup prediction. “I just knew I was so good, I had to score, like I was going to score. And when I’ve come to Brighton, I’ve just hit the biggest mountain I’ve ever hit.”

Canadian forward Promise David heads to Premier League

While he doesn’t lack for confidence – David famously spurned university scholarship offers to bet on himself to make it as an 18-year-old in Europe – he knows he has a fight on his hands for playing time.

He has failed to make it off the bench in each of Brighton’s past three matches, with last weekend’s 3-0 home win over defending champion Arsenal pushing the Seagulls, as they are known, up to third in the league table.

Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler reached out for Canadian men’s head coach Jesse Marsch before signing David, and has told the player he’ll need to score goals when he gets his opportunities to earn more playing time.

Marsch, who has included David in his national-team squad for the upcoming friendlies against Chile, Peru and the United States, has told David he will have to work harder than he ever has before. With four goals in 14 international appearances since his debut last year, David is expected to be a big part of Canada’s attack heading toward the 2030 World Cup.

“Promise is still looking to really establish himself at Brighton, but I have no doubt that he will,” says Marsch, who managed in the Premier League before he took over the Canada job.

That confidence is shared by other coaches who helped him along his journey. Anthony Vadori, who worked with David at Vaughan Soccer Club after he was cut by the Toronto FC academy at 15, says David is “like an oxymoron.”

“I know he gives off that air of confidence he always kind of has in his own individual ability,” he said. “But Promise is one of the most humble, down-to-earth people you’ll ever meet in your life.”

Patrice Gheisar, who currently coaches in League1 Ontario, also worked with David at Vaughan, and has stayed in touch with him ever since. Although he, like almost everyone else, never thought David would end up in the Premier League, now that he’s there, believes he’s primed to make an impact.

“I think Premier League is the best league in the world. I’m not sure many people will fight that, and it’s exactly what he needs,” he says. “Tempo, fast pace, and if he starts adjusting, I think it’s scary what he can do. Scary.”

David didn’t have to wait long for his welcome-to-the-Premier League moment, coming just seconds after he made it on the to pitch against Chelsea, the team he grew up cheering for. He was just about to make his first touch in the EPL, when he says he got bodied by Blues centre back Maxence Lacroix, who came away with the ball.

It was a wake-up call that the habits and tendencies that had worked so well for him in Belgium just weren’t going to cut it, and presaged a 10-minute meeting with coaches the following day to go over the film.

It’s all just part of the Premier League experience.

“What I saw blew my mind and not even in games, just in training,” he adds. “I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ It’s very cutthroat, and your window of adjustment is a lot smaller.”

On the positive side, he has something of a local support network, with a number of fellow Canadian internationals playing over in England now, including Brighton third-string goalkeeper Tom McGill, a Canadian who has been previously called up to Marsch’s squads. Junior Hoilett, currently without a club, has been down to see David play, and fellow striker Cyle Larin isn’t all that far away in Southampton.

He’s particularly close with Luc de Fougerolles, who was playing for Fulham before he got loaned out to Real Salt Lake in Major League Soccer, Bolton Wanderers winger Jayden Nelson, and Liam Millar, who scored for Hull City on the second weekend of the season before getting loaned out to Birmingham City.

He plans to go and see Millar’s family in Birmingham on one of his side quests, mainly so he can see his teammate’s two young daughters, who call him “Crazy Bobi.” Though he has no kids himself at present, his love for children figures heavily into his post-career plans.

In a World Cup that saw a record number of 40-year-olds competing, as well as a seemingly ageless Lionel Messi rolling back the years, David assures everyone that he will be done by the time the 2038 World Cup rolls around.

“No, I promise you, at 35, I will be somewhere on a beach drinking mojitos. Actually, I lied. I’ll be opening up daycares,” he says. “Tobi’s Daycare. Drop their kids off. Pay what you want, but your kids have to be fun.”

But there’s plenty of fun – and hard work – to be had on the pitch before then. He’d like to win a CONCACAF Gold Cup for Canada – the men’s team hasn’t lifted a trophy since winning the 2000 edition – and he also believes that this Brighton team can make an impression too.

Now sitting third in the league table, and having knocked Manchester United out of the League Cup with a famous come-from-behind win at Old Trafford last week, there is a belief that something special is brewing on the south coast, and David is hopeful of being at the centre of it.

“If I didn’t believe I could win a trophy, I’d be somewhere in Saudi collecting my millions of untaxed income,” he says. “But I feel like we’re here to actually compete for something because we believe we could do it.”