Gloire Amanda (born November 11, 1998) is a professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who currently plays for

Whitecaps FC 2 Whitecaps FC 2 is a professional soccer team based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada that serves as the reserve team of the Vancouver Whitecaps FC of Major League Soccer. History Prior to the MLS Next Pro iteration the team played its h ...

. Born in Tanzania, he represented Canada at youth international level.

Early life

Amanda was born in the Nyarugusu refugee camp to Congolese parents. His family moved to

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada, when he was 8 years old. He played youth soccer with Edmonton Internazionale, Edmonton Extreme FC, and at St. Nicholas Soccer Academy where he played with Canada national team player

Alphonso Davies Alphonso Boyle Davies (born November 2, 2000) is a Canadian professional soccer player who plays as a left-back or winger for club Bayern Munich and the Canada national team. He is regarded as one of the best full-backs in the world due to hi ...

. He then joined the

FC Edmonton FC Edmonton was a Canadian professional soccer club based in Edmonton, Alberta. The club was founded in 2010 and competed in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 2011 to 2017. The club went on hiatus when NASL ceased competitive operat ...

Academy for a year. He trialled with the

Vancouver Whitecaps Academy Whitecaps FC Academy is a Canadian soccer team, the academy of professional team Vancouver Whitecaps FC. They were originally known as the Whitecaps Residency program. About Whitecaps FC Academy is a full-time, fully funded, player development pro ...

in 2013, before ultimately joining them in 2014.

College career

Ahead of the

2018 NCAA Division I men's soccer season The 2018 NCAA Division I men's soccer season was the 60th season of NCAA championship men's college soccer. The regular season began on August 24, 2018 and continued into the first weekend of November 2018. The season culminated with the four-tea ...

, Amanda signed a

National Letter of Intent National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

to play

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United Kingd ...

for the

Oregon State Beavers men's soccer The Oregon State Beavers men's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of Oregon State University and competes in the Pac-12 Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The team was founded in 1988 and has competed in ...

program. In 2020, in his junior season, he led the NCAA Division I in goals (15) and total points (37), setting the OSU single-season record for points and was named to the All-Pac-12 and All-Far West Region first team, the United Soccer Coaches’ All-America first team and Top Drawer Soccer Best XI first team, and an All-American. He also was named the 2020 MAC Hermann Trophy winner as the top player in the NCAA, becoming the first Oregon State player to win the award.

Club career

Amanda signed his first professional contract with

on March 31, 2017, having been with the Whitecaps academy since he was 15. In May 2017, Amanda was named to the Whitecaps roster for the 2017 Canadian Championship on a short term contract, which was allowed him to play in non-MLS matches. He would spend one season with Whitecaps FC 2 before the club ceased operations after the 2017 season. Rather than sign a USL deal with the Whitecaps new affiliate,

Fresno FC Fresno Football Club was an American professional soccer team based in Fresno, California. Founded in 2017, the team was a member of the USL Championship, a second-tier league in the American Soccer Pyramid. Their first game took place on March ...

, Amanda would elect to evaluate playing opportunities in college. While playing for

Oregon State Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering col ...

, Amanda would sign with

Lane United FC Lane United FC is an American soccer club based in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 2013, the team currently plays in USL League Two, the fourth tier of the American soccer pyramid. History 2013 Lane United was admitted into the USL Premier Develo ...

of the

Premier Development League USL League Two (USL2), formerly the Premier Development League (PDL), is a semi-professional developmental association football, soccer league sponsored by United Soccer Leagues in the United States and Canada, forming part of the United Stat ...

for the 2018 season. In June 2021, Amanda joined newly-promoted

Austrian Bundesliga The Austrian Football Bundesliga (german: Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, italic=no , "Austrian Football Federal League"), also known as Admiral Bundesliga for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Austrian football league system. Th ...

side

Austria Klagenfurt Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ci ...

on a two-year deal. He scored his first goal on October 16, netting the equalizer against

Rapid Wien Sportklub Rapid Wien (), commonly known as Rapid Vienna, is an Austrian football club playing in the country's capital city of Vienna. Rapid has won the most Austrian championship titles (32), including the first title in the season 1911–12, ...

in a 1-1 draw. In February 2023, he terminated his contract with the club by mutual consent.

International career

In 2015, he was called up to the Canadian under-18 team for the Slovakia Cup.

Personal life

His younger brother,

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

, is also a professional soccer player.

Career statistics

References

External links

Whitecaps bio
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Amanda, Gloire 1998 births Living people All-American college men's soccer players Men's association football forwards People from Kigoma Region Tanzanian people of Democratic Republic of the Congo descent Tanzanian emigrants to Canada Naturalized citizens of Canada Canadian men's soccer players USL Championship players USL League Two players Austrian Football Bundesliga players Oregon State Beavers men's soccer players Whitecaps FC 2 players Lane United FC players SK Austria Klagenfurt (2007) players Soccer players from Edmonton Canadian expatriate men's soccer players Canadian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate men's soccer players in the United States Canadian expatriate sportspeople in Austria Expatriate men's footballers in Austria MLS Next Pro players