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With a perfectly executed volley, Ali Ahmed’s story had added a fairytale chapter. The Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder, just six months after signing his first-team contract, had put the Major League Soccer team up 2-0 17 minutes into their Canadian Championship semifinal against Pacific FC on Wednesday night.

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His celebration was a simple fist pump, even if the goal warranted so much more. It had energized an entire organization desperate for redemption after crashing out of the competition in the same stadium, against the same team, in 2021.

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Then, his dream story became a nightmare.

Two minutes after scoring, Ali Ahmed was scythed down by Pacific defender Cédric Toussaint in the Tridents box. He crashed down hard on Starlight’s artificial turf, his arm bending gruesomely underneath him before his head smashed and bounced off the green.

It was a hard, tackle, verging on brutal, but veteran referee Drew Fischer adjudged it to be legal.

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The 22-year-old Ahmed remained motionless, and most likely unconscious for minutes as the training staff from both teams huddled around him. Seventeen minutes passed, with team officials and players holding blankets up to hide him from view, before he was strapped onto a stretcher and taken to hospital.

He was conscious and accompanied by a member of the Whitecaps medical staff, but no immediate updates on his condition were available.

The game resumed, but the heart had been taken out of it, with all thoughts on Ahmed’s condition. When Simon Becher scored the 3-0 goal, he held up two fingers on each hand  for Ahmed’s No. 22 — before forming a heart.

The final score, 3-0, was a hollow victory for Vancouver, even if they earned the right to host Montreal in the Canadian Championship final.

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Ahmed’s path to the pros was a rocky and uncommon one, as he turned down a spot with Toronto FC’s academy to try his hand in Europe. The experience was a dismal one, as he racked up the miles traveling Europe as an 18-year-old, alone on a different continent.

He returned home, eventually finding his way to the Whitecaps organization. He impressed at training camp in 2022, but they kept him with the MLS Next Pro team, where he was their standout player, leading the team in assists.

He signed his first-team deal in November, and had been a revelation this year with the Whitecaps, his darting attacks and quicksilver transitions making him a fan favourite while he racked up a goal and an assist in league play.

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The 5-foot-9 Toronto native just got his first call-up to the national team, with John Herdman naming him to the preliminary roster for the Concacaf Nations League Finals. Of the 60 players called to camp, 23 will make the roster for the tournament.

Canada plays Panama on June 15 in Las Vegas at 4 p.m. PT, before facing either the U.S. or Mexico in the in the final or third-place game on June 18.

Ali and his four siblings grew up in the Toronto district of Lawrence Heights — “The Jungle,” the locals call it, a neighbourhood fraught with gun violence and drive-bys — after their parents, mom Muna and dad Afendi, emigrated from Ethiopia’s Oromo region in the late 1980s.

Soccer was his lifeline.

“Man, this game, this ball, it’s taught me so much — and not even just about soccer. It’s taught me how to be a good human, how to be a good person,” he said. “This small ball, since I was like five, six when I started kicking it, I didn’t know it would teach me life. But it taught me life, taught me happiness, and gave me happiness.”

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NOTES: U.S. International Julian Gressel had the opening goal for the Whitecaps, his second goal of the competition this year. … Montreal had beaten CPL leaders Forge 2-0 earlier in the day to make the final. … The Whitecaps had 63 per cent possession but were outshot 16-10 by Pacific, with Yohei Takaoka being forced to make several diving saves to preserve the shutout.

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