Stage fright has never been an issue for Alphonso Davies.
This was the 13-year-old kid who stood up alone at his high school’s Christmas performance and left the audience in hysterics with an improvised comedy skit.
The 15-year-old footballer who created a buzz throughout North American soccer when he became the second-youngest Major League Soccer debutant in the summer of 2016.
The 19-year-old that had his Bayern Munich team-mates in howls of laughter with his rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ during a pre-season initiation last year.
Alphonso Davies skips past a Chelsea challenge during Bayern Munich’s 3-0 win on Tuesday
The Canadian had his team-mates in hysterics with his rendition of Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ during their pre-season camp last summer
And the player who looked right at home in his first match in the Champions League knockout stages, dominating Chelsea as Bayern took a 3-0 lead in their last-16 tie on Tuesday night.
No challenge on or off the field has daunted Davies so far in a life story that is already remarkable, while his career prospects from here appear to be limitless.
Bayern, supposedly in crisis when Niko Kovac departed following a 5-1 thrashing by Eintracht Frankfurt back in November, have refreshed themselves under Hans-Dieter Flick and Davies has been integral to the process.
Davies leaps into the celebrations after setting up Robert Lewandowski (right) for the third
The left-back played a central role as Bayern put one foot in the Champions League last eight
Top of the Bundesliga once again and on course for an eighth consecutive title win, Bayern put together the best-ever Champions League group stage record and now have one foot in the quarter-finals.
Davies has been a big part of Bayern’s bounceback and his many talents at left-back were in evidence at Stamford Bridge, notably when he marauded forward to lay the perfect pass for Robert Lewandowski to score a tie-killing third.
His electric burst down the left, throwing off challenges before serving the perfect pass was very similar to his assist to Lewandowski against Freiburg back in December.
It’s probably inaccurate to describe Davies as a left-back because he doesn’t fit the conventional mould for that position.
It serves him as more of a launchpad for a free-roaming role that sees him well advanced on the left side (and on occasion the right) and Flick is more than happy for Davies to have such freedom.
Not that the Canadian neglects his defensive responsibilities. His blistering acceleration means Davies can easily make up ground if caught out by a long ball in behind him or a pass down the line.
Mason Mount was starved of opportunities on Tuesday night in the way his England team-mate Jadon Sancho was when Bayern thrashed Borussia Dortmund 4-0 just after Kovac’s sacking and Flick’s appointment in November.
At least Mount was spared the indignity of being hooked by his manager after just 36 minutes, the fate that befell the ineffective Sancho that night as Davies completely bossed him.
Bundesliga viewers are now very much used to seeing Davies control the entire left flank in games, an influence that has delivered seven assists in 26 first-team outings.
Davies completely bossed Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho during Bayern’s 4-0 win
England star Sancho was so shackled by Davies he was withdrawn on 36 minutes
It seems a long time ago now since Davies started the season playing for Bayern’s second team in the German 3. Liga.
His elevation into the first-team on a more regular basis was the result of circumstance – a defensive injury crisis in October left Bayern without Lucas Hernandez, Niklas Sule and David Alaba – but Davies has seized his opportunity with both hands.
After making his first Bundesliga start of the season in the 2-1 home win over Union Berlin the week before Kovac left, Davies has started every single league and Champions League match since.
Indeed, the debate has now moved from whether Davies is suitable for the first team to whether he should play at left-back or as a left winger in the years ahead.
Davies, pictured flying to London for the Chelsea game, is an entertainer on and off the field
It was Bayern manager Hansi Flick who gave Davies a sustained run in the side last autumn
He’s certainly a crowd-pleaser on the field and likewise off it, where Davies has embraced Generation Y’s social media outlet of choice, TikTok, with often hilarious results.
Not only did his unashamedly off-key performance of Whitney make it on there, but Davies put together a brilliant re-enactment of a memorable scene from the US police sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
In it, a murder witness failed to see the man responsible for the crime but could hear them singing ‘I Want it That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys as they committed the act.
The cop asks a line-up of suspects to each sing a few lines from the song so the witness can identify the murderer, a scene that Davies mimicked superbly.
Another popular one is his copies of famous footballers’ trademark celebrations, from Cristiano Ronaldo to Mohamed Salah.
It’s clear Davies is a born entertainer and he wears an almost permanent smile on his face while doing it. But his success has been a million-to-one shot.
Davies’ parents fled Liberia during a bloody civil war, with his mother Victoria recalling having to step over dead bodies on the daily search for food.
‘The only way you survive sometimes is you have to carry guns too,’ said his father Debeah. ‘We didn’t have any interest in shooting guns.’
They moved to Buduburam, a refugee camp near Accra in Ghana, where Alphonso was born in 2000. ‘Refugee life was like being put in a container and being locked up,’ remembered Victoria.
The family applied for Canadian citizenship in desperation for a better life, moving to Windsor, Ontario initially before settling in Edmonton, Alberta.
The footballing talents of their son quickly became apparent though it took plenty of coaching at the Vancouver Whitecaps academy to ensure Davies played within team systems as opposed to trying to run the show himself.
A photograph of a young Davies – his family moved to Canada from Ghana when he was five
Even at the age of 13, coaches were comparing his talents with a ‘young Arjen Robben’ and progress to the Whitecaps first team was rapid.
When he made his MLS debut on July 16, 2016 aged 15, only Freddy Adu had featured in the competition at a younger age.
After two years of regular MLS football and some eye-catching performances, it came as little surprise that leading European clubs came knocking.
History could have been very different had a training camp for the Canadian Olympic team not prevented Davies spending three weeks on trial with Manchester United in January 2018.
United were unable to arrange another trial for the Canadian starlet and six months later he was a Bayern player.
Davies slides in to thwart Zlatan Ibrahimovic during an MLS match for Vancouver Whitecaps
Celebrating with Thomas Muller after the German scored in Bayern’s 7-2 thrashing of Spurs
There was also interest from Arsenal, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain, but only the German club mapped out a detailed five-year plan for Davies with the ultimate goal being a regular place in their first team.
Bayern’s well-considered blueprint for his development had even considered how he might adapt to their tactics and style of playing.
It made the decision easy but despite this attention to detail, Davies’ rise at Bayern has still been remarkable.
All talk of further second team experience or a loan spell has vanished. It is now Davies who needs to be displaced from Bayern’s first team and that doesn’t appear likely anytime soon.