Derek Austin Cornelius (born 25 November 1997) is a Canadian professional soccer player who plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for

Allsvenskan Allsvenskan (; en, the All-Swedish, also known as Fotbollsallsvenskan, en, the Football All-Swedish) is a Swedish professional league for men's association football clubs. It was founded in 1924 and is the top tier of the Swedish football le ...

club

Malmö FF Malmö Fotbollförening, commonly known as Malmö FF, Malmö, or MFF, is a professional football club and the most successful football club in Sweden in terms of trophies won. Formed in 1910 and affiliated with the Scania Football Associatio ...

and the Canadian national team.

Early life

Cornelius was born in

Ajax, Ontario Ajax (; 2021 population: 126,666) is a town in Durham Region in Southern Ontario, Canada, located in the eastern part of the Greater Toronto Area. The town is named for , a Royal Navy cruiser that served in the Second World War. It is approxi ...

to a Barbadian father and a Jamaican mother. Cornelius started playing when he was selected as a younger player for the 1996 House League All-Star team.Experience And Accomplishments
at derek-cornelius.com, Retrieved 5 November 2017 He was then selected by the Ajax Thunder under-8 team at six years old. In the season after that, he was the Unionville Milliken Challenge Cup Champions Most Valuable Player. At the U11 level, he won the C.O.V.I. Championship and was proclaimed the Most Valuable Player. In 2012, he played in the Oviedo Cup with

PFC CSKA Moscow Professional Football Club CSKA (russian: link=yes, Профессиональный футбольный клуб – ЦСКА, derived from the historical name 'Центральный спортивный клуб армии', English: ...

in Spain, then he played in the Milk Cup by CSKA Moscow in Northern Ireland where he led the team scoring four goals in the tournament. He ended that year by being invited to the CSKA Moscow Reserve Camp and by playing in the U21 Provincial and Men's Regional leagues, scoring 22 goals in 30 games. In 2013, he was selected for the Canadian national under-17 team for camp in Florida and Costa Rica, and was later selected for the CONCACAF World Cup U17 Qualifier pre-camp in Florida. He was also selected for the Canadian national under-16 Team for the Torneo delle Nazioni tournament in Italy. That same year he was invited to Hungary for trials with

Nyíregyháza Spartacus FC Nyíregyháza Spartacus is a football club from Nyíregyháza, Hungary. Formed in 1928, they've had brief stints in the Nemzeti Bajnokság III, they currently play in the second division. The team is locally referred to by their nickname, ''S ...

and

Győri ETO FC ETO FC Győr (''Egyetértés Torna Osztály Futball Club Győr''; ''Concordance Gymnastics Department Football Club of Győr'') or just ETO, is a football club from the city of Győr in Hungary. They are best known for reaching the semi-finals ...

in March.

Club career

Early career

In January 2014, he moved to Germany. He began training with

VfB Lübeck VfB Lübeck is a German association football club playing in Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein in the country's north. In addition to its football side the 1,000 member sports club also has departments for badminton, women's gymnastics, handball, an ...

U19 team. He spent two seasons with the main team,Derek Cornelius
at thefinalball.com but was unable to play due to FIFA rules for underaged players. He became eligible to play effective on 1 January 2016. With VfB Lübeck he won the

Schleswig-Holstein Cup The Schleswig-Holstein Cup (German: ''Schleswig-Holstein Pokal'') is one of the 21 regional cup competitions of German football. It is a qualifying competition for the German Cup, with the winner of the competition being automatically qualified ...

two years in a row and made an appearance in the

2015–16 Regionalliga The 2015–16 Regionalliga was the eighth season of the Regionalliga, the fourth under the new format, as the fourth tier of the German football league system. The champions of Regionalliga Nord – SV Werder Bremen II, the champions of the Regi ...

Nord.Derek Cornelius
at Soccerway In summer 2016 he moved to

VfR Neumünster VfR Neumünster is a German association football club based in Neumünster, Schleswig-Holstein. The club was established on 3 March 1910 as FV Neumünster by members of FC Germania 1907 Neumünster and FC Viktoria 1909 Neumünster. In 1924, FV ...

playing with them the first half of the season.

Javor Ivanjica

During the winterbreak of the 2016–17 season, Cornelius was signed by

Serbian SuperLiga The Serbian Super League ( sr, Супер лига Србије / Super liga Srbije), referred to as the Mozzart Bet Super League ( sr, Моцарт Бет Супер лига / Mozzart Bet Super liga) for sponsorship reasons, is a Serbian profes ...

side

FK Javor Ivanjica Fk Javor Matis () is a professional football club based in Ivanjica, Serbia. They compete in the Serbian SuperLiga, the top tier of the national league system. History In 1912, a student named Milan Radojević brought the first football ball t ...

after successful trials. He made his league debut on 29 April 2017, in an away game against

FK Radnički Niš Fudbalski klub Radnički (), commonly known as Radnički Niš ( sr-cyr, Раднички Ниш), is a professional football club based in ok Niš, Serbia. Its name means ''Labourers'' in Serbian and stems from the relationship with the Labour ...

. Javor head coach Srđan Vasiljević converted Cornelius from a forward into a

Vancouver Whitecaps FC

On 18 January 2019, Cornelius returned to his native Canada and signed with MLS side

Vancouver Whitecaps FC Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club is a Canadian professional soccer team based in Vancouver. They compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The MLS iteration of the club was established on Marc ...

. He made his debut for the Whitecaps on 2 March in their 2019 MLS season opener against Minnesota United. Cornelius scored his first goal for the club on 18 May against

Sporting Kansas City Sporting Kansas City, often shortened to Sporting KC, is an American men's professional soccer club based in the Kansas City metropolitan area. The administrative offices are located in Downtown Kansas City, Missouri, and the team clubhouse an ...

. In July 2021 the Whitecaps announced Cornelius had been loaned to

Panetolikos Panetolikos Football Club ( el, ΠΑΕ Παναιτωλικός), or with its full name Panetolikós Yimnastikós Filekpedeftikós Síllogos ( el, Παναιτωλικός Γυμναστικός Φιλεκπαιδευτικός Σύλλογος'' ...

of the

Super League Greece The Super League Greece 1 ( el, Ελληνική Σούπερ Λιγκ 1), or Super League 1, is the highest professional association football league in Greece. The league was formed on 16 July 2006 and replaced ''Alpha Ethniki'' at the top of ...

until December 2022.

Malmö FF

In December 2022 Vancouver announced Cornelius had been transferred to

side

. He signed a contract through 2026 with the Scandinavian club.

International career

Cornelius was part of the Canadian U17 camp in February 2013. He was called up to a U23 camp on 8 January 2018. In May 2018, Cornelius was named to Canada's under-21 squad for the

2018 Toulon Tournament The 2018 Toulon Tournament (officially french: 46ème Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello) was the 46th edition of the Toulon Tournament. It was held in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône from 26 May to 9 June 2018. Engl ...

and would earn rave reviews for his performance at the tournament. In 2018, he was named the Canada Soccer Youth International Player of the Year. On 12 March 2018, Cornelius received his first call up to the Canadian senior side for a friendly against

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 List of islands of New Zealand, smaller islands. It is the ...

to be played on 24 March 2018. He would make his debut for Canada on 9 September 2018, starting and playing the entire match in an 8–0 victory over the U.S. Virgin Islands. On 30 May 2019, Cornelius was named to the 23-man squad for the

2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 15th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial international men's soccer championship of the North, Central American, and Caribbean region organized by CONCACAF. The tournament was primarily hosted in th ...

. He was named to the Canadian U-23 roster for the

2020 CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying Championship The 2020 CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying Championship was the fifteenth and final edition of the CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying, the quadrennial, international, age-restricted football tournament organised by CONCACAF to determine which men' ...

on 10 March 2021. In November 2022, Cornelius was named to Canada's squad for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022; it is the first Wo ...

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Club

VfB Lübeck *

: 2015, 2016

Individual

* CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying Best XI: 2020 * Canadian Men's Youth International Player of the Year: 2018

References

External links