Hidden Gems FC: How 'Baby Lukaku' Promise David overcame adversity to become one of Europe's hottest goal-scorers
'Baby Lukaku'. That is the nickname, coined by Romelu Lukaku's former team-mate Kevin Mirallas, that Belgian journalists love to use when they write about Promise David. It's easy to see why, too, with the Union Saint-Gilloise striker one of European football's most unsung talents, a true Hidden Gem.
The striker is physically and mentally strong and is very fast. Weapons with which he can force something in every game. With his profile, it is not surprising that Premier League clubs such as West Ham United are closely following him. And yet David does not dispel all doubts.
David appears clumsy, wild, certainly no clinical finisher, and his lack of concentration is apparent. David is an enigma to scouts. He can't tread water, but he can swim easily from A to B. The black Michael Phelps, he calls himself in Similarly, David can play a terrible game, yet still manage to get his name on the score sheet. That may actually be his greatest quality. It drives his coach, David Hubert, crazy. But Hubert can't ignore him, because his striker can score anytime, anywhere. And his five-year plan? He's ticked that off in a year and a half. Promise David has found his way.
Lukaku-esque
If there is one goal that perfectly illustrates just why Mirallas, who now works as USG's attacking coach, compares David to Lukaku, it was his striker against Royal Antwerp in March 2025. In the opening game of the Jupiler League championship play-offs, David was played in behind the Antwerp defence as Rosen Bozhinov pulled out all the stops to fend the striker off.
"As I ran, I felt a claw at my neck," the striker told podcast about a goal that quickly went viral on the internet. "When I took a shower later, it hurt badly because he had literally torn the skin off my neck. I bled throughout the entire match and didn't even realise it."
"I headed straight for the goal, seeing nothing but green," David continued. "I didn't want to dive or fall. Then he grabbed me again. I thought, 'You f*cking dick!' I swung my arms back and my shirt ripped. I was happy about that, because every time he pulled on that shirt, it felt like I was choking."
With only half a shirt left, David finally broke free from Bozhinov, though the defender had slowed him down just enough for a team-mate to catch up. David, though, produced a simple body feint to leave the second defender in the dust before sliding the ball into the net, slapping his chest powerfully and screaming mightily in celebration.
"I was subbed and then took a look at my phone," he said. "The goal had already been posted on social media and it looked horrible. It was just assault!
"Our sporting director has that shirt hanging in our new training facility, alongside all kinds of other historic kits from Union's history. He said, 'This shirt symbolises Union: it's about resilience, strength and not giving up." It is precisely those three things that symbolise David's unusual career path, too.
AdvertisementWhere it all began
As a child, David always was an energetic boy – "My teachers thought I was a good kid, but also that I was a distraction to others," he recalls – as he grew up in Brampton, Ontario, a city that also has links to his fellow Canada internationals Cyle Larin, Atiba Hutchinson and Tajon Buchanan.
However, it was not in Canada, but rather in Lagos, Nigeria, where David discovered his love for football. As a toddler, he lived there with his grandparents, while his uncle was a huge Chelsea supporter.
"I'll never forget him picking me up at my grandmother's house," David told . "I sat on the back of his motorbike and we rode to the bar together to watch the matches."
Upon moving back to Canada, David looked for a hobby to pour his energy into. At first, it was the piano, but when it broke – "That really p*ssed me off!" – David went looking for something else, and soon found his new love: football.
'F*ck you moment'
David initially joined Toronto FC's academy, but at the age of 15 he was let go. He then spent three years with semi-professional outfit Vaughan Azzurri before, having turned 18 in 2019, he was offered a move to Europe to join Croatian third-division side NK Trnje. It proved, however, to be a painful moment in his young life.
"Things happened in Croatia that I didn't even dare tell my parents about," David recalls, before revealing the racist abuse he suffered from his coach in Zagreb. "He didn't want black people, Africans, on his team. He said bizarre things to me.On one occasion, my team-mates didn't translate what he had shouted during a training session until a month later because they found it too awful. Everyone froze the moment he said it. It was something like,God forbid I ever put a black player in my team.'"
David was sent back to the youth team, where he was able to rediscover his love of the game under a different coach, Rajko Vidovic. When Vidovic became the coach of the first team shortly afterwards, he provided the prolific striker an opportunity, one which David took immediately.
"It was the biggest f*ck you momentof my life," David says of the goal he scored moment after coming off the bench for his debut. "It felt like revenge on that one man."
David soon left Zagreb, however, and moved to the United States and USL outfit FC Tulsa. The switch did not prove to be a success, and he soon headed back to Europe, joining Maltese side Valletta.
"I lost a cup final there," David remembered. "That broke me. I've cried three times in my life when it came to football, that match was one of them. My niece Liz was in the stadium at the time and she took a photo of me on the big screen just as I was crying. Man, I'm ugly when I cry."
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The big break
By the time a spell with a different Maltese club, Sirens FC, had also ended in disappointment, David was 21 and his dream of a career as a professional footballer seemed very far away.
"My parents wanted me to come home," he said. "Until then, they had always supported me. But they had lost hope. I asked them for one more opportunity." That opportunity soon arose in Estonia with Kalju FC. At that point, David drew up an ambitious five-year plan that would end with him playing and scoring at a World Cup.
"The idea was to either play football really well, or be a loser," said David when summing up his thoughts at the time to podcast. "I really didn't want to go to school."
Things didn't start well for him in his new home, however. David was regarded as a 'project' and was initially integrated into Kalju's youth team. There, however, he scored a lot of goals and was eventually promoted to the first team. But any suggestion that David was finally on the right track were soon put to bed.
"I remember playing a match," he recalled. "We were 2-1 up at half-time and I was playing pretty well. They lured us in and then played long balls, so as an attacker I didn't put any pressure on them when we were leading. I walked into the changing room and the president grabbed me by the neck and dragged me out before saying, Is this how you want to play? Don't you know what your father does to keep you here? I'm 60 and I move more than you do!'
"In the second half, I scored again and we won 4-3. All my team-mates were celebrating in the dressing room but I was in the shower crying because the president had just called my father and agent and said it was a big mistake to bring me to the club.
"I didn't have an apartment, but was staying in a hostel. At the same time, all my friends from home were graduating. I had my father's credit card with me because I wasn't earning any money from football. That's when I really thought, 'What am I doing with my life?'"
Those emotions eventually subsided and David worked hard to secure a regular role in the first team. In the 2024 season, he scored 14 goals in 16 games, but despite interest in his services from leagues higher up the food chain, Kalju initially refused to let David leave under any circumstances: "It was insane. I begged them, 'Please release me'. Those times made me understand how people feel when they have to work a 9-to-5 job they hate."
David's plea worked and Kalju reached an agreement with USG in the summer of 2024 for David to move to Belgium.