da supremo： The forward tells GOAL about joining Paris Saint-Germain at 17, her NWSL switch and how Canada is aiming to bounce back from a shock World Cup exit

da dobrowin： Jordyn Huitema was just 17 years old when, having grown up among Chilliwack’s modest population of 93,000, she landed in the big city of Paris. She was the third-youngest player in the history of Canada’s national team, its second-youngest goal-scorer and was already being dubbed the successor to Christine Sinclair, her country’s greatest-ever soccer player. When she chose to skip college to sign a professional deal with Paris Saint-Germain then, the expectation became even greater.

But when GOAL asks her now, aged 22, how she dealt with all of that at such a young age, in a new country with a different culture and language, her response is a wonderful example of how good Huitema is at ignoring the outside noise. She didn't struggle with the pressure or media attention. Instead, her difficulties were the logistical problems of chasing a huge soccer dream, thousands of miles from home, while still being so young.

“You can't have an apartment until you're 18 in Europe, if you're international,” Huitema explains. “So, for six months, I lived in a hotel. I had all of my suitcases packed in a hotel room, of my whole life. I had like six or seven suitcases just jammed in a tiny European hotel room. Every time I had national-team camp, I had to check out of the room and then store all of my bags in a storage unit, and then come back from national team, grab all the bags, bring them back, check in again. I had to do that every month for the national team and I did that for like six or seven months, just because I wanted really good training ahead of the 2019 World Cup.”

It paid dividends, because Huitema was named to that World Cup roster, heading to the tournament for the first time aged 18. She’d already made history that year as the first Canadian to turn pro out of high school in a career that appeared to be all about breaking new ground. The news of her addition to New Balance’s roster of athletes, announced on Thursday, feels fitting, then.

This is a brand that supports so many sports stars that have broken through at a tender age, be it tennis sensation Coco Gauff, United States men’s national team forward Timothy Weah or, across the pond, England’s Bukayo Saka. Now, as it looks to make waves in the women’s soccer space, it is linking up with an athlete, in Huitema, who knows that the path to the top is both arduous and rewarding.

GettyGreat expectations

That path first crossed with the spotlight when Huitema broke into Canada’s senior national team at the age of 15, before her move to PSG intensified public interest and confirmed her status as a teen prodigy. For some, such attention would’ve been difficult to deal with. For Huitema? “I think I was pretty good at separating that from my life,” she tells GOAL.

“It was almost like everybody was talking about some other person that wasn't even me. That's kind of how I felt. I was just like, 'Oh, I'm me, I'm a small town kid from Chilliwack. Alright, they can keep talking'. It wasn't anything that got to me, it wasn't anything that was super exciting to me. It was really cool, obviously, to hear those things and I think the biggest thing too, they always said, 'Oh, she's going to be the next Christine Sinclair', but I wanted to just be me. I just wanted to be Jordyn.

“She's a person you can't replace, genuinely. You can't replace her and you can't do what she did for the game again, because it's already done and it's past that point. I didn't want to be another her. She's an amazing human, an amazing player, but I didn't want to be her 2.0. I want to just be me. I think that was something I brought into everything I did, so it was pretty easy to get through that.”

AdvertisementGettyHistory-maker

Such a mentality has helped Huitema be part of two historic soccer teams: the first PSG side to win the Division 1 Feminine and the first Canada side to win Olympic gold in soccer.

But to achieve feats like this takes real dedication. Like most athletes, Huitema has had to make serious sacrifices, leaving home at the age of 14 to be able to realise her dreams. “My journey was definitely a little different,” she says. “It brought a lot of different challenges, unexpected challenges, and it also brought me to a place in my career that I wouldn't have got to had I not taken those paths.

“Honestly, it's been nice to kind of travel the world and experience so many different cultures and different ways of life as well. I think that's a big thing about playing in Europe, so I'm glad that I got to enjoy that. But for me, it's always just been a very simple game and it's something that I enjoy and love to do.”

New BalanceNew Balance adventure

Huitema’s passion for the sport, her place at its highest level and tendency to break new ground all make her an ideal candidate for New Balance’s growing roster of athletes, then. As the brand looks to expand in women’s soccer, the Canada star is a huge signing, joining World Cup winner Claudia Zornoza, NWSL champion Rocky Rodriguez and rising American star Michelle Cooper, among others.

“They have huge names that they support and sponsor and being added to that list is an honor,” Huitema says. “I think there was a piece of women's soccer missing, and wanting to push that forward as well and wanting to help them do that, plus them supporting my own profile and pushing me forward.

“I think [women’s soccer is] definitely an area that we can push and that we can really grow, which is going to be amazing. I'm happy to be kind of one of the kick-starters. They already have some other female soccer players as well, but to help kind of push them in the direction that I know that they deserve to go in, and that we can get this to become very globally exciting, is really cool.”

GettyFamiliar surroundings

Huitema doesn’t discuss this career news from Paris, but rather the West Coast of the United States, having made another rather significant move in the weeks that followed PSG’s first league title. After so many years away from home, she is now back near Chilliwack again, having signed for the Seattle Reign midway through the 2022 season. It takes only two-and-a-half hours in the car for her to be back where she grew up, which is nothing on a continent the size of North America.

“I definitely wanted to play in the NWSL,” Huitema says, reflecting on her decision to leave France. “I had been talking with my agent and it seemed like a good fit for me, and I was definitely keen to get back close to home. It'd been a while, I'd travelled to Europe a lot, I'd been playing for Paris but also for the national team and we had a lot of camps all around Europe, so I think my time in Europe at that point was coming to an end and I just felt like I wanted to return home.

“Seattle was just a great fit. Laura Harvey as a coach, she's an amazing human, and her and I fit really well. I think my ideas of how I wanted to play and everything, my life in general, fit really well with Seattle. It was pretty quick.”