Alphonso Davies has even more reason to smile ahead of Bayern Munich's UEFA Champions League showdown with Chelsea. - © 2019 DFL
Alphonso Davies has even more reason to smile ahead of Bayern Munich's UEFA Champions League showdown with Chelsea. - © 2019 DFL
bundesliga

Bayern Munich's Alphonso Davies: "My dad's a Chelsea fan!"

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Alphonso Davies expects his dad to get right behind Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League last-16 on Tuesday, despite being a Chelsea fan.

The Davies household watched a lot of Chelsea when Alphonso was growing up, but have been turned on to Bayern in the last year or so.

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Davies has been making waves at the club since making the switch from the Vancouver Whitecaps, after all, and when he takes to the field against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday, he expects his father to be in the red, rather than the blue, corner.

"My dad has always been a big Chelsea fan, and I was a fan of Didier Drogba," the 19-year-old told Germany's leading sports specialist magazine, kicker. "But I'm pretty sure he loves me more than he does Chelsea (laughs)."

Joking aside, Davies will be taking his 26th competitive appearance of his first full season in Europe, and fourth in the Champions League, as seriously as any other. He produced two assists in his most recent continental outing as Bayern capped a perfect group campaign with a 3-1 home win over Tottenham Hotspur, but is primed for an even more thorough examination of his and his club's credentials on his first trip to the English capital.

"It'll be a difficult game," Davies said, after Chelsea also beat Tottenham 2-1 in the English Premier League at the weekend. "They are a young, hungry team. We need to make sure we're well prepared."

There's no indication Bayern will be anything but. The Bundesliga leaders showed real champion spirit to battle past bottom side Paderborn on Friday night, recording a 3-2 win that extends their unbeaten run to 10 matches in all competitions (W9, D1). The fact Davies has started every one of them is no coincidence, and is testament to his seamless transition from Major League Soccer to the Bundesliga, and from attacking winger to left-back.

Watch: Alphonso Davies under the tactical microscope

Not that Chelsea's former Canada youth international Fikayo Tomori is surprised. The Calgary-born defender witnessed Davies' mushrooming talent first-hand as a teenager, before pledging his international allegiance to England.

"I remember when the squad got announced, the media was talking about the 15-year-old that was playing for Canada Under-20s. It was Alphonso Davies," Tomori told Goal. "I actually hadn’t heard of him before and we got to the camp and we were sharing a room. I was like 'oh, I am sharing a room with a 15-year-old' and I was 18 at this point. But we actually got on really well.

"Being at Bayern Munich has obviously improved him massively, but back then if you didn’t know you wouldn’t say he was 15 from the way he was built and playing. You could see there was something."