(Ike Ugbo/CBC)

A 23-year-old youth international striker from London has committed to play soccer for Canada.

Ugbo will be with the team for the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying matches against Mexico and Costa Rica on November 12 and November 16 in Edmonton.

Ike Ugbo joined Chelsea’s academy at the under-10 level when he returned to England and he played youth soccer at Brampton East SC and Woodbridge Strikers. The young soccer athlete is also a two-time UEFA Youth League winner with Chelsea FC (2014-15 and 2015-16) and was an awesome scorer in assisting the Blues to win a series of national Youth Cups. More recently, he played club football for KRC Genk in Belgium.

In the 2017-18 season, Ugbo was on loan at the Championship club in Barnsley. He returned to Chelsea in January of 2018 having made 18 appearances in the Yorkshire club. He then went out on loan to MK Dons in League One, scoring twice in 17 games.

He joined League One with the Scunthorpe United with one goal in 14 appearances in August of 2018 and the year after that, he was loaned to Roda JC in the Dutch second tier where he scored 13 goals in 28 matches.

In August 2020, Ugbo moved to Belgium’s Cercle Brugge on loan and scored 18 goals in 30 games before making permanently moving to KRC Genk. For this season, he has four goals in 12 matches across all competitions.

Ugbo is the newest player to switch national associations to carry the Canadian colours. Since 2018, other players who have switched allegiance include Ayo Akinola, Theo Corbeanu, Stephen Eustaquio, Ricardo Ferreira, Cristian Gutierrez, Frank Sturing, and David Wotherspoon.

Bienvenue, Ike Ugbo!