His name is one of the biggest in Canadian sports at the moment, which surely has plenty of MLS fans asking: Who is Cameron Porter?
While I have a feeling we will all find out a lot more about him in the coming days, I have a slight leg up in that I met Porter while covering the 2015 adidas MLS Player Combine.
At the time, Porter – a late addition to the combine after several players pulled out due to injuries – said he was in the middle of final exams at Princeton. A computer science major, he said he is three classes and his senior thesis away from earning his degree. His trip to Florida meant he was missing a group presentation in one of his classes. Hopefully that worked out OK.
The decision to attend the combine certainly turned out to be a good one. Although Porter was not selected until the third round of the MLS SuperDraft (No. 45 overall), he earned a contract with the Montreal Impact during the preseason and came on as a substitute in both legs of the Impact's Champions League quarterfinal series against Pachuca.
In the second leg on Tuesday, with the Impact needing a goal to tie the match and win the series on away goals, Porter
did this
.
Not bad for a combine injury replacement.
So what else do we know about him?
For one, Porter started all four years on the field at Princeton, but his game really took off in his junior year, 2013, when he was a unanimous first team all-Ivy League selection after leading the league with nine goals and three assists. He topped that in 2014 after tying for the national lead in points per game, scoring 15 goals in just 17 contests to earn Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year and ECAC Offensive Player of the Year honors.
An Ivy Club member who said his favorite music is "anything Kygo remixes," Porter (6-foot-1, 175 pounds) said Dimitar Berbatov is one of the players he's watched the most – "in his prime, he made everything look easy." In that vein, Porter prefers to play as a No. 9 target forward but said he is comfortable and willing to play out wide in a 4-2-3-1 formation. That versatility seems to be holding him in good stead with the Impact.
Born in Centerville, Ohio, Porter unsurprisingly recalled a US win over Mexico in Columbus, Ohio, as "the most exciting game I had ever been to."
I have a feeling that he may have topped that on Tuesday night and, in the process, inspired many a Montreal and MLS fan with an exciting moment to call his own.
