Olivia Smith makes history as Canada's senior team youngest soccer player
December 18, 2019
At the 2015 Women’s Soccer World Cup in Canada, Olivia Smith met her soccer idol Marta while Brazil was in Montreal for a Group Stage match.
Little did she know then that she would be on the same field with the leading women’s World Cup scorer who is considered the all-time greatest female player.
An 86th minute substitute for Jordyn Huitema in last month’s four-nation soccer competition in Yongchuan, China, Smith – at age 15 years and 94 days -- became the youngest soccer player – male or female – to debut with the national team in a 4-0 loss to Brazil in the tournament opener.
Kara Lang was 15 years and 130 days when she made her debut 17 years ago.
In Montreal, Smith chatted for about two minutes and took a photo with her hero. In China, the closest they came was in an elevator with veteran Christine Sinclair who had represented Canada 66 times and scored 40 goals before Smith was born.
“I didn’t say anything to her because I didn’t want it to look as if I was a fan girl,” said the teenager whose parents, Sean and Sulee Riquelme-Smith, prepared Marta highlights for their daughter to watch in the car on their way to games.
Warming up on the sideline with the game winding down, Smith was on her way back to the bench when coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller asked, ‘What are you doing’?, and then proceeded to tell her she was taking the field.
“I was extremely nervous, but very excited,” she said. “I am a big fan of Sinclair and Kadeisha Buchanan and I never thought I would be on the same team with them. It was an unbelievable experience.”
Olivia Smith (sixth from right back row) debuted for Canada in China
Heiner-Moller saw Smith for the first time at last year’s Confederation of North, Central American & Caribbean Associations of Football (CONCACAF) Under-15 tournament in Florida and was very impressed.
“She can do so much already,” he told Canadian Press after the China tournament. “She can already perform at a level that’s beyond what you could think a kid her age could actually do. So it's about taking very, very good care of her, but also pushing her. In the world of sports, you can find so many very, very good players at the age of 14, 15 that didn’t make it because either they took it too lightly or had bad advice or whatever. But I can tell you she wasn't given any internationals. In this camp, she earned both of them. And if you can earn them by the time you’re 15, you’ve got hopefully a pretty good future ahead of you.”
Smith, who did taekwondo for three years, learnt of the selection two weeks before the tournament.
Just after returning home from a camp at Florida State University (FSU) where she has verbally committed, she and her family took part in a routine conference call with Canada Soccer.
“This was something that’s done regularly to find out how I am progressing and also for them to set goals for me,” said the midfielder who, at age 12, was invited to an Under-17 Identification camp. “During the chat with Brandon Frith (the Women’s Excel Ontario REX Manager) and Daniel Worthington (the Women’s National team Assistant Coach and Excel Under-15 to Under-23 Director), they said Olivia, ‘So, we are going to send you to China with the women’s team’. I was shocked and there was silence on the phone for almost a minute before they asked us if we are still on the line. I thanked them for the opportunity.”
Olivia Smith in action in the four-nation tournament in Yongchuan
Smith played volleyball, basketball and other sports in middle school, but soccer was her first love, having being introduced to the game at age three.
“My sister, who is seven years older than me, has a friend whose daughter was the same age as Olivia and they decided to put them in a Timbits program,” said Riquelme-Smith who was born in Toronto to immigrants from Chile and Peru. “That’s how she started.”
It was evident at a young age that Smith would excel in the sport.
“You could see the progression,” said her father who is of Jamaican heritage. “I enrolled her in a House League and coached the team and I worked with her daily on drills in a nearby park after I was laid off by General Motors. This girl was like a sponge soaking up everything and it got to the point where I realized there was only so much that I could do for her and I had to put her in the hands of an experienced coach who we could trust to take her to the next level. That’s when I called a friend who I knew was heavily involved in the sport and asked him to train her. She was about five then and I noticed that, in addition to her love for the sport, her left foot shot was hard and accurate.”
After Drew Allen gave Smith her first shot at competitive soccer in Whitby, she moved after a year to Oshawa Kicks that was coached by Steve Simmonds who is a friend of her dad.
Always seeking opportunities to help their oldest daughter improve, Smith was enrolled in Bryst Football Academy in Brampton.
“Every Saturday or Sunday for two years, we drove from Whitby for the two-hour training session,” said the family patriarch. “Olivia was seven at the time and she got up at around six o’clock in the morning and was ready to go for the workout. Never did she say she was tired or she wasn’t feeling well. The extra training, I find, is very important as team practices can only do so much for you if you want to make it to the top level.”
With the 2014 launch of the Ontario Player Development League (OPDL) as one of the province's first standards-based youth high performance league that combines top level competition with strict high performance training standards, a select group of 25 licensed holders from across the province were selected to deliver the program.
The Whitby Iroquois and Ajax FC organizations were the only clubs in the Durham region among the license holders.
“Olivia didn’t make the Whitby side where all her friends were and we didn’t tell her,” said her dad. “She, however, was selected by Ajax that was coached by Michelle White and she wanted to be there to play for that coach in an intense environment.”
White, who retired from the club last year, said the team environment helped to advance Smith’s game.
“She got stronger on the ball when she was with us because we had a good fitness program,” the coach added. “A lot of her development can be attributed to the team mates because the team was technically sound and they pushed each other to be better. Olivia is a hard worker and her parents are a big factor in her development because they have done what is needed for her to get to this point.”
Six years ago, Smith joined Woody Bailey Soccer School (WBBS) in Mississauga.
“Woody is old school, no-nonsense, intense and very technical,” said Riquelme-Smith. “We have seen the results of what he’s teaching and that’s the reason we take Olivia there every Friday.”
Bailey played for Reno in Jamaica, Alderson Broaddus University in West Virginia, St. Mary’s University in Halifax, the Toronto Blizzard and Kitchener Spirit before opening WBSS in 2002.
“When the kids come here, it is obvious that some of them have the potential to do great things,” he said. “However, some of them are hungrier than others and Olivia is in that category. She has a great work ethic and is very disciplined and willing to learn. Despite how well she is doing, there is always room for improvement and I think she and her parents recognize that.”
Olivia Smith with younger sister Maliyah and their proud parents Sean and Sulee Riquelme-Smith
After a year with the Markham Lightning, Marko Milanovic recruited Smith to play for the North Toronto Nitros.
“He helped fine tune her skills,” noted Riquelme-Smith. “Olivia trained with the boys’ team and girls who were two years older than her.”
Milanovic knew he was working with a special player the first time Smith stepped on his training field.
“Olivia is a player who stands out from the group within five seconds of her gaining possession,” he pointed out. “Her ability to create and finish in the third is something that I have never seen before from a youth female player. All of that becomes even more impressive with the fact that she is still just 15 years old.”
Smith, who took part in an Under-15 National Excel one-week camp in Burnaby in April 2017, transitioned from the Nitros to the Ontario Regional Excellence (REX) program later that year and was among the first intake of 28 players engaged in the full-time program, playing and training five days per week with national and international licensed coaches while attending Bill Crothers Secondary School.
Impressing dozens of coaches at a tournament in North Carolina when she was in Grade Eight, Smith received over 30 recruitment offers.
After visits to FSU, West Virginia, Michigan, the University of California at Los Angeles, North Carolina State, Duke and Harvard, she and her family chose the Seminoles who are the defending National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champions.
“It came down to the coach and the program,” said Smith who aspires to play professional soccer in Europe. “Through my years in soccer, that is always what has appealed to me. I want to know how a coach is going to help me improve and get better. The other schools that I visited told me what their program is about, but never mentioned anything about what they were going to do to help me to improve which is what I want to hear. The Florida State coach explained in detail how he’s going to make me a better a player.”
Smith, who relishes playing the midfield because ‘you get to see the whole field, control the ball and make quick decisions’, has a younger sister following in her footsteps.
Maliyah Smith, 10, is a winger with the Unionville-Milliken Soccer Club.
