Promise David reflects on unlikely path to the Premier League: 'Don't do what I did'

MONTREAL - Promise David walked up to a self-checkout in Estonia with four apples, some bread and no way to pay for it all. It was 2023 and the well-travelled Canadian striker, after stops in Croatia, Oklahoma, and Malta, was playing unpaid soccer for Nomme Kalju's reserve team in the small European country's third tier.

On the morning of an away match, David was so hungry he resorted to shoplifting. "I woke up, I went to the grocery store and I had to steal apples," David recalled.

"I couldn't even pay for all of it, so I hid a couple items in my bag, God forgive me." Canada's Promise David is seen in action during International friendly action against Chile, in Toronto, on Saturday, Sept. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young That was just the beginning of a long day that included hours of bus and scooter rides from Tallinn to Estonia's eastern border and back - with 90 minutes, a goal and a gas-station KitKat in between - before ending with "sleep for dinner." And though he laughs about it now, the 25-year-old from Brampton, Ont., looks back on that period as one of the lowest points on an improbable journey to Brighton & Hove Albion in England's Premier League.

The six-foot-five David, whose charismatic personality matches his size, eventually cracked Nomme Kalju's first team and scored 30 goals in 44 appearances, catching the attention of Belgian Pro League side Union Saint-Gilloise. In two seasons there, he scored 41 goals in 82 matches and helped the club win its first league title in 90 years.

David's rapid rise continued with Canada at this past summer's World Cup, where he scored off the bench in a group stage loss to Switzerland, before signing with Brighton over several other suitors in mid-August. "I wanted to give myself the biggest challenge on the biggest stage, and see what it would do to me as a human being and as a football player," David said at a downtown Montreal hotel last week before Canada beat Peru 2-0 in a friendly.

"I thought it would be very funny to think to myself that like three, four years ago I was like not even professional, and then now I'm playing in the Premier League." The move to England's south coast came together so quickly, the timing of the transfer caught him completely off guard. Some 10 days after learning of Brighton's interest, David was on a beach north of Bruges, dancing in a mosh pit at a music festival, when his phone started ringing off the hook.

He ignored three calls before finally picking up and learning his Brighton medical was scheduled in just a couple of days. "It was shocking because I was already having fun and I was like, 'Oh my God, I just got transferred,'" he said.

"I remember looking at my friends like, 'Damn, you guys are not gonna see me for a long time."