Ten things you didn’t know about English striker Jermain Defoe, who will leave Tottenham Hotspur FC in February to join Toronto FC.

1. Born in working-class Beckton in east London, Jermain Defoe was the captain of his school’s soccer team at age six.

2. A devout Christian, Defoe also believes his goal-scoring talent is a gift from God.

3. The 31-year-old founded the Jermain Defoe Foundation to support vulnerable youth in St. Lucia and plans to establish a football academy on the Caribbean island as well to “help players reach their full potential,” according to the foundation.

4. Defoe has visited his grandparents’ native country St. Lucia every year since he was a child.

5. He is a huge, self-proclaimed Drake fan. Drake is “up there with the greatest,” he told reporters Monday. When they met two years ago, “I was like a little kid. I love his music, I appreciate his music.” Defoe also credits the Toronto-born rapper with helping convince him to move across the pond to play for Toronto FC.

6. He first played soccer for the Charlton district team in London. He attended a camp at Bisham Abbey and played for the National Football Association in 1997. He started playing professionally at 16.

7. The striker is Tottenham’s fifth highest scorer of all time and all-time leader in European goals with 23.

8. Defoe has often been in the spotlight for non-soccer-related news. The death of his cousin, Hannah Defoe, made international headlines last summer after she was electrocuted in a hotel swimming pool in St. Lucia, according to the Daily Mail. His father died around the same time from cancer at 49, and he told the British media the only time he was truly at peace was while playing soccer. And earlier this year it was revealed after a DNA test that he was not the father of his former girlfriend’s baby.

9. He has said nothing meant as much to him thus far in his career than being able to buy his mother a house.

10. He has over 695,000 Twitter followers and updates regularly on his foundation, training and “dinner at mum’s.”

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