°Â³ó¾±³Ù²ú²â’s Olivia Smith made international headlines last week when Arsenal, the reigning title holders in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, reportedly paid a record transfer fee of about $1.8 million to procure her services from Liverpool.
If it was a watershed moment, it was hardly the 20-year-old Smith’s first experience as a groundbreaker. At age 15, she became the youngest player to compete for Canada’s national women’s team. In 2023, at 18, she was the youngest member of Canada’s entry at the Women’s World Cup in Australia.
Here in the GTA, Smith’s remarkable rise hasn’t exactly come as a surprise. Smith’s talent was first nurtured close to home by her father and first coach, Sean Smith. The basement of the family residence, where mother Sulee and younger sister Maliyah rounded out the squad, was a gauntlet of training aids, from speed ladders to pylons. Ajax’s Nottingham Central Park was the family’s first go-to outdoor training ground.
“She and I would be at the park for hours, just doing drills, doing drills, doing drills,†Sean Smith said in a recent interview. “It was like, if you train real hard, she would be able to jump on the swing, and then we’d go get slushies.â€
In the early years, even bedtime reading was soccer-themed.
“You may laugh at this, but it’s a true story. When other people were reading stories like ‘Cat in the Hat,’ we were reading David Beckham books,†Sean Smith said. “Like, with what part of the foot to receive the ball? Or make sure you strike a ball with your laces, knee over the ball … These are things that we would read at night time and then recite them.â€
A Canadian player setting a new benchmark in the women’s soccer transfer market floats a lot…
As Olivia carved a path through youth soccer, scoring goals at an astounding rate often against girls a year or two older en route to scholarship offers from top U.S. colleges, there were occasional setbacks.
“One of the first big moments for me was getting cut from my U10 team,†Olivia wrote in an email to the Star this week. “It was tough at the time, but it gave me the drive to work harder and prove myself.â€
Michelle White, coach of the Ajax FC team that happily welcomed Olivia onto its roster after she was cut by neighbouring Whitby, lamented the bizarre politics of youth sports.
“Whitby didn’t take her because she was underage. They had a rule about that. We did also. But it was like, this kid is too good to not allow to play up a year,†White said. “We had to get approval from the district, but I think it worked out for the best for Olivia … The kid loved the game. Her work ethic stood out. Her ball skills were just amazing. And that had to do with all the training she did. She did a lot of training on her own and with her dad. And they had her going to a lot of different places to do training. The family put a lot of effort into her, but she wanted that.â€
Indeed, as Sean Smith was saying this week, Olivia’s obsession with getting better was coupled with an insatiable love for the grind.
“She matched my crazy,†Sean Smith said. “It was amazing to watch and see how much she enjoyed doing it … When you train, you have to love what you’re doing. It can’t be something that’s a job.â€
Sean Smith said he came to the early realization that he could only teach his daughter so much, that the more coaches and trainers and players Olivia could learn from the better off she’d be. Among the community of GTA coaches and trainers who have subsequently had a hand in Olivia’s development, her boundless enthusiasm for her craft is the stuff of legend.
“Olivia always had gas in the tank. She’d leave my training to go to another training,†said Mark De Rosario, the brother of former ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ FC captain Dwayne De Rosario, who worked with Olivia at the DeRoFit Soccer Program in Ajax for years. “And the thing I remember most about her was her smile.â€
Mark De Rosario also remembers the fear in the eyes of goalkeepers when Olivia lined up to shoot a soccer ball.
“When people saw Olivia shoot a ball, you’d have goalkeepers, they would actually leave the net and say, ‘I’m not standing in front of that,’ †said De Rosario, who partly credited Olivia’s childhood stint learning taekwondo for her prodigious power. “And these were boys. Olivia was maybe 14. And we had 16-year-old boy goalkeepers saying, ‘Nah, coach. Nah. She already made me look bad once today.’ And Olivia would just be smiling ear to ear.â€
When Olivia went to train at Etobicoke’s 180 Degree High Performance, where workouts combined strength and conditioning with soccer-specific exercises with an eye toward injury prevention, owner Ahjton Roberts said he was immediately impressed with her appetite for hard work.
“She was an outlier from the beginning,†Roberts said. “There are a lot of parents that come to me that want discipline and intensity to be delivered. But not every athlete has that capacity. She was a player that could handle a high capacity immediately.â€
With high capacity comes high expectations. But Olivia has been living with those for a while.
“There’s never been a doubt that she would be a player who makes history. But this (transfer to Arsenal) came really quick,†said Dino Rossi, the president of League1 Canada.
As hard as it may be to believe, just three years ago Smith spent part of her summer playing for the North ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Nitros of the semi-pro League1, a bridge league between youth soccer and the professional ranks. That Smith scored 18 goals in 11 games with the Nitros — before spending one year at Penn State, then turning pro and joining Portugal’s Sporting CP — told you she wouldn’t be long for any level below the top one.
“Her ability to fight off defenders, she just doesn’t quit,†Rossi said. “There’s some players, they take a bump and it knocks them off their game. She fought through everything … We Canadians value that player that doesn’t roll over, that doesn’t take a bump and scream in pain. That’s her. She has no fear. Players double-team her, triple-team her, she finds a way.â€
A nine-year-old Olivia Smith with one of her idols, Canadian soccer icon Christine Sinclair.
Smith family photoFor all that, she won’t turn 21 until next month. At the same age, an all-time great named Christine Sinclair was still playing at the University of Portland. Which is not to compare Olivia Smith to anyone.
“You don’t want to attach, ‘She could to the next …’ to players. But whenever I watch her play, I feel like I’m watching Canada’s Sam Kerr,†said Rossi, speaking of the Australian striker who plays for Chelsea. “They have a lot of the same abilities. And if she can get close to Sam, she’s going to have an amazing, amazing career.â€
Said De Rosario: “I have no doubt saying that Olivia will probably be one of the top three women’s soccer players in the world in the next three or four years.â€
On the road to the top with a smile on her face.
“She’s a supreme athlete, but she’s just a sweet girl,” De Rosario said. “I don’t think she’s got a bad bone in her body. She’s humble. She’s patient.”
And she’s a killer on the pitch.
“I always tell the kids, ‘You’ve got to have a halo, and you’ve got to have horns. Off the field, you wear your halo. But when you’re training and playing, you’ve got to wear your horns,’†De Rosario said. “And, man, does Olivia know how to put on some horns.â€
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