David-Koné matchup in Italy's premier league shows how far Canadian soccer has come

Not so long ago, the prospect of two Canadians meeting in Italy’s Serie A would have seemed an unlikely turn. But on Tuesday night in Reggio Emilia, in the crisp, anxious minutes before the whistle blew and host Sassuolo dug in against Juventus, Ismael Koné and Jonathan David stood on opposite sides of the pitch, pretending not to know each other.

They know each other well, of course.

They’ve also become a little unrecognizable lately, two men of surprisingly divergent fates. Koné, who’s had an ill-starred club career, has broken out in his first season with overachieving Sassuolo. And David, Canada’s all-time leading scorer, has suffered with Juventus, Serie A’s humbled giants.

Tuesday night was maybe a course correction, a reassertion of former roles.

David scored his first league goal since August and a dominant Juventus won 3-0; Koné was left to stand with his hands on his hips and watch his breath turn solid in the cold.

Before the match, thousands of Juventus supporters, dressed entirely in black, set off fireworks as loud as bombs.

The noise after David scored rivalled them.

He pressed and stole a bad back pass, cut into the Sassuolo box, and, after a display of remarkable composure given how desperate he must have been to score, slipped a low, left-footed shot into the net.

Weeks, months, of doubt and its burdens came off him at once. His teammates — his entire team, including the bench, in their long black coats — ran toward him, and they leaped up and down in a mob with him in the middle as though he’d won them the Champions League.

David hadn’t scored since his first league game with Juventus, the pressure mounting with each fruitless outing, the worst stretch of his otherwise enviable career. His missed