He didn’t join the team until more than three years ago, but last week Garven Metusala became just the seventh player to make his 100th appearance for Forge FC.

And at 24 the centre-back is the youngest to crack the Forge century mark, a group which includes only Alex Achinioti-Jönsson, Kyle Bekker, Tristan Borges, Dom Samuel, Triston Henry and David Choinière. 

“That was my dream– to become a pro– and I’m at my 100th game already, in four years,” the native of Terrebonne, QC said today as his team prepared to travel to Winnipeg to face Valour FC on Sunday. “It feels like an achievement for me. It helped that in my first year we were in Concacaf League and reached the semis. When our season ended in December, we had over 40 games, and I played about 35.”

Although the Hammers took Metusala in the 2020 U-Sports draft, he never really played in U-Sports. In his first year at Concordia, the outdoor playing schedule was called off because of the pandemic, although there were some indoor games. The Forge drafted him because they have an extensive scouting system and saw him play for Laval in Ligue1 Québec and for Dawson College, a CGEP (junior college) in downtown Montréal.

He joined Forge in 2021 and has worked his way into being an indispensable player on the back line.

“He’s a great example of a player who’s developed phenomenally over the years, and he’s become one of the better defenders in this league,” says head coach Bobby Smyrniotis.  “He’s played all the important games since 2021 for us and the great thing is he keeps getting better.

“He played for his club in the PLSQ and we’re always looking at players who haven’t been looked at before. He’s a great example of players who aren’t part of a traditional system who can come in and flourish in this league. “

Metusala’s family moved to Terrebonne from Laval when he was 11 but he continued to play his youth club ball in Laval, just outside Montréal. When he was 13 he was in the Montréal Impact (now CF Montréal) system but was let go three years later.

“It didn’t work for me,” he said. “I was playing more in midfield, then dropped back to centre back. I hadn’t grown, I was skinny and wasn’t a strong defender. I had knee problems too. The style was too quick for me and I wasn’t able to stay on the same level as other players so they didn’t keep me. I went back to my former club (étoiles de L’Est) and got my confidence back.

“Around 16 or 17 I started to grow and went from 5-9 to almost six feet in one summer.”

Since he was nine years old, Metusala’s best friend has been Samuel Salter, who is now a striker with Atlético Ottawa. They decided to play in the semi-pro league to face more experienced players who were faster and tougher on the ball.

“Our plan was always comparing ourselves to the guys in Europe,” he said. “We knew that if we want to be in that same level, we have to play older players. I did three years in the league.”

When he was playing semipro, a coach there said that if he ever made pro, he’d contact the Haitian Football Federation to alert them that Metusala was eligible for their national team because his mother is from Haiti. His father is from the Republic of Congo and he was eligible to play for either of his parents’ homelands or for Canada, his own.

But he chose Haiti and made his senior debut two years ago. He played nearly every minute of Haiti’s 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup tournament, which ended after the group stage, and in early June he helped Haiti advance out of Group C to the next round of qualifying for the 2026 Men’s World Cup.

“Haiti contacted me first,” he explained of his decision. “I always told my mom and my dad I wanted to play for one of their countries. Seeing what’s going on in both Congo and Haiti I really had that feeling that I wanted to give back to their country.

“It’s an honour to play for the national team. Just before I joined the national team there were rumours that I was coming and the amount of support I received on the internet was phenomenal. There were hundreds of messages, even more, from Haitian natives –‘Good luck’!; ‘We can’t wait to see you!’–stuff like that.

“They’ve never really recovered from the earthquake, so it’s obviously said to see the situation in the country. The situation is really tough, especially in the capital. There are a lot of political problems, especially with the gangs.

“Even the Haitian national team hasn’t played in Haiti since 2021.”

Getting the important minutes with Haiti has clearly hastened Metusala’s development and his leadership skills. He’s become more vocal in his time with Forge, and Smyrniotis will occasionally move him to different positions on the backline. And he’s another of the many multi-lingual players on Forge: his native tongue is French, and he also speaks Créole and some Ngala.

He is fluent in English because his youth team in Laval “was mostly Italian and I learned English from them. That’s also why I chose Dawson College instead of a college in Laval because I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and really learn English.”

Metusala describes his playing style as “clean on the ball. I’m kind of a technical defender: good passing, and good dribbling as a defender. You have defenders who are more aggressive, more there to tackle and defend. I can also do that job but I’d say my attributes are on the ball.

“As a team that keeps the ball a lot, when playing a team more direct or counter-attacking, you have to be aware. We can score five goals, but as defenders, we have to stay locked in as much as possible because teams are just waiting for a slight moment of inattention and they take it.”

It’s his, and his fellow backliners’, job to make sure they don’t.