Alphonso Davies hunted the ball, running after it so fast he would have received a ticket in many school zones. It was October 13, 2021, on a breezy night at Toronto’s BMO Field, and Davies, the then twenty-year-old Canadian phenom, was about to do something truly special. It was a cagey game between Canada and Panama, one of dozens of crucial matchups among teams from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean all vying for four coveted spots from the region at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The game was tied 1–1 well into the second half.
In the sixty-sixth minute, the ball was cleared out of the Canadian end, and a Panamanian defender appeared fine with watching it head toward the touch line. Davies was not. He ran a third of the field’s length, reaching a top speed of 37.1 kilometres per hour, to then deftly pluck the ball almost between the legs of the defender to keep it inbounds by a hair. With the ball at his feet, Davies turned to goal, dispatched a defender, and then shot across his body, freezing the Panamanian goalkeeper. The ball rippled the back of the net, the crowd jumped to its feet, the announcer was uproarious.
