As he prepares to kick off his second season as a professional footballer, Shola Jimoh is at ease.

The soft-spoken 16-year-old isn’t the new kid anymore in the York United dressing room. In fact, as they get set to kick off the 2025 Canadian Premier League season, he is one of the team’s most recognizable names.

“Everyone knows me, and it’s easy,” said Jimoh. “So I have confidence and I just play my game and not have to like prove a point to everyone in the dressing room.”

It was a point well made last season. After impressing during the club’s preseason trip down to Mexico, Jimoh signed an Exceptional Young Talent contract with York in June. He made his debut a few days later, and scored his first professional goal a month thereafter against Cavalry FC — becoming the second-youngest goalscorer in league history.

Jimoh finished the campaign with four goals and an assist in all competitions, including a goal and an assist against Atlético Ottawa in the CPL playoff quarter-final — a thrilling contest which the Nine Stripes ultimately lost on penalties.

The combination of his age and performances means that Jimoh isn’t just known at York United or across the Canadian Premier League — but increasingly as one of the most promising young players in Canadian soccer. That brings with it newfound expectations and eyes on Jimoh, but he isn’t worried about any of that being a distraction as he looks to just focus on doing more of what has got him this far.

“I have a good support system around me and I just keep my head down and just work,” said Jimoh.

For Mauro Eustáquio, who at 32 is entering his first season as York United’s head coach following three seasons as an assistant, all the attention has done little to change the impressive young man he gets to work with each day.

“He’s still our Sholito,” said Eustáquio. “I mean, I look at him and he’s the first one up. He’s the first one grabbing the bag of balls, the first one grabbing the cone that’s left on the field, the first one that if there’s a ball missing he’s looking around. Those are the things people at times oversee, but it means a lot, just the mentality that he has.”

During the off-season, Jimoh has kept quite busy. In early November, he was called into a senior national team training camp, where he got to test himself against the team’s best North American-based players. That included several, like Jonathan Osorio, Richie Laryea, Sam Piette and Max Crépeau who have become mainstays with the national team over the past few years.

“That was a nice experience, and helped me sharpen my game,” said Jimoh, who earned rave reviews from national team head coach Jesse Marsch for his performances.

“He shows some real cleverness on the ball at times, some explosiveness in the way he plays,” Marsch told media during the camp. “But also intelligence, in that when I try to give him little things to be thinking about, he’s able to apply them quickly.”

Immediately thereafter, Jimoh took off for Costa Rica, where he joined the Canadian U-17 team for a pair of friendlies. After beating Costa Rica 3-0 in the first match, Jimoh scored his first goal for his country in a 2-1 victory over Mexico.

“It was really good because we haven’t beat Mexico in a really long time at the youth level, and for our team to do it that just gave us all belief that we could do big things this cycle,” said Jimoh.

Last month, he was back with the team for the 2025 Concacaf U-17 Men’s Qualifiers in Bermuda. Canada won the competition’s Group A handily, going 4-0-0, with Jimoh scoring twice. As such, they qualified for the 2025 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Qatar in November.

Canada has never won a match at a U-17 World Cup before, but Jimoh believes this group has all the talent to make that happen, and more.

“We have a lot of firepower, and we have a lot of players who play at top-level clubs, and really talented players,” said Jimoh. “So I think we’ll win a game at the World Cup, and possibly make it out of the group.”

As the lone professional on that U-17 team, Jimoh’s experience was relied upon during qualifying. Even if he still stands out as small compared to his teenage peers, they look up to him on and off the pitch.

“I’m just, like, a leader of the team,” said Jimoh. “And I try to help my teammates and I see that my teammates come around me for support and stuff. So it’s good.”

His time with the U-17s caused Shola to arrive a little bit late into York’s pre-season preparations, but as he joined the group it was once again clear to Eustáquio that he wouldn’t have to worry too much this year about managing expectations around his youngest player.

“I think Shola is one of the easiest players to manage, to be honest with you,” said Eustáquio. “I think that he’s the same player that he was last year. He’s obviously someone that wants to continue to grow so that hungriness that he showed last year, he continues to push for his limits, and it’s a real pleasure to work with someone like that.”

As he works through his first full preseason as a professional soccer player, Jimoh does so as part of a very new look York United squad.

Gone is the player who assisted on his first-ever professional goal in July of last year, Brian Wright. So is club captain Mo Babouli, who headed home Jimoh’s first-ever pro assist in that playoff match against Atleti — among 15 confirmed departures for the Nine Stripes this off-season.

Instead, Jimoh has spent pre-season getting to work with a new attacking group, one that he says is already gelling really well. In particular, he says he and new striker Julian Altobelli have developed a really good connection.

York United kick off the 2025 regular season on April 6 in Langley, BC against Vancouver FC. Two days later, Jimoh turns 17. As he looks ahead to the season, Jimoh is keeping his goals for the year pretty simple.

“Just to build off last year and see where it takes me,” he says.

And he adds a bit of advice he got from Canadian men’s national team head coach Marsch: “Just keep having fun too”.

If he can do both of those things, 2025 is sure to be another memorable year for Jimoh as he continues to prove why he is one of the Canadian Premier League’s most exciting players to watch.