Brett Levis patiently answered all the questions the young players threw his way Friday morning during a Vancouver Whitecaps youth soccer clinic at Layritz Park.
Are you in the latest FIFA video game?
鈥淵es, and it鈥檚 cool, because I grew up playing the game with my friends.鈥�
How much money do you make?
鈥淚 can鈥檛 say here.鈥�
Do you get free things?
鈥淵es, there are perks.鈥�
When was your best assist?
鈥淚n a friendly against Crystal Palace.鈥�
Do you want to play for sa国际传媒?
鈥淚 would love to play for the national team. I have been contacted by the new manager and they want to bring me into camp when I get healthy.鈥�
Levis returned Friday to the city where his soccer career turned during his 2013 season with the Victoria Highlanders in the USL Premier Development League.
鈥淲e had a great team that year in Victoria and went all the way to the PDL Final Four in Texas and this how the Vancouver Whitecaps scouted me,鈥� recalled Levis.
鈥淭he PDL and the Highlanders got me seen. I just progressed through the ranks.鈥�
After scoring eight goals in 44 games from 2015-2016 with Whitecaps FC 2 of the USL, Levis was signed by the Whitecaps last year to an MLS first-team contract. The native of Saskatoon made his MLS debut last August but tore a knee ligament in his very first game for the Whitecaps against the Portland Timbers. He has been out since. The rehab has been long with Levis expecting to finally be ready for selection in about a month.
But a guy who has climbed from the University of Saskatchewan Huskies to the Highlanders to the Whitecaps USL team to the main MLS Whitecaps isn't going to be denied his dream by an injury, as brutally inopportune as it was.
鈥淚鈥檝e made it this far. I can鈥檛 let this get in the way,鈥� said the quietly determined 24-year-old former Highlander.
鈥淚 grew up with a soccer ball. This is my goal.鈥�
Victoria fans who remember Levis as a clever-on-the ball attacking midfielder who scored nine goals in 14 regular-season games for the Highlanders, and as a Huskies player who bedeviled the University of Victoria Vikes, will be surprised to learn the Whitecaps turned him into a left back when Jordan Harvey got injured.
鈥淚鈥檓 still attacking as a left back,鈥� said Levis, with a glint.
He is only five-foot-eight but so smart with the ball.
鈥淭he best player in the world [Messi] is small,鈥� he added.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not about your size in soccer. It鈥檚 about what you do on the ball that counts.鈥�
From Saskatoon, through Victoria, and now Vancouver, it has counted for a lot. Where it leads is yet to be written. But the youth players at Layritz on Friday may have been well advised to lap up his every word.
ON THE PITCH: At Centennial Stadium on Friday, the Highlanders edged Seattle Sounders U-23 2-1. Out of playoff contention, Victoria will wrap up the season Sunday in Calgary against Foothills.
