Coming into this World Cup, Canada’s hopes hinged on the form of their one world-class player, Alphonso Davies. This has been the case for every major competition they have entered since he made his international debut in 2017, and it’s easy to see why: over the last nine years, Davies has transformed Canada’s fortunes.
After being grouped in each of the first three Gold Cups in the 2010s, Canada have reached the quarter-final or further in five consecutive installments. The Bayern Munich star was also at the fore as they qualified for the 2022 World Cup, the first time they reached men’s football’s biggest stage since 1986. And their fourth-place finish at the 2024 Copa América involved a fit and firing Davies.
It’s a team sport, but when a roster has one indisputable star, its hopes are often inextricably tied to that player. That was bad news for Canada at this World Cup. Davies missed all three of Canada’s group games as he recovered from an injury he suffered in May. Finally, in the last-32, Davies came off the bench for 15 minutes and helped inspire Canada to victory over South Africa. Surely, it seemed, the Bayern star would take on a similar role on Saturday.
As Canada chased an equalizer against Morocco, though, fans were left wondering when Davies would come off the bench to jolt his team back to life. Marsch never brought on Davies. Canada ended up losing the match 3-0, ending their World Cup hopes.
The past 15 months have seen Davies on the trainer’s table far too often. He made just 13 Bundesliga appearances this season as he continued to recover from a serious injury that severely complicated the relationship between player, coach, club and national team.
The trouble dates back to March 2025, when Canada played Mexico in the Concacaf Nations League semi-final. Davies went the full 90, but El Tri won 2-0 en route to winning the title.
That pitted Canada and the United States against one another in the third-place match. It was a fine opportunity to rotate in some fresher faces and rest each team’s most important players in a fairly meaningless match. Canada chose to play Davies though, and in the 12th minute he tore his ACL.
Bayern were not happy, with the team’s board member for sport later saying that “there is unfortunately always a danger that players come back injured, and this time it has hit us especially hard.”
Davies’s agent wasn’t pleased either. “Alphonso was not 100% after the Mexico game and it was planned that he was not going to start against the USA,” his agent, Nedal Huoseh, wrote in a statement. “As captain, I feel he was pressured to start the game by the coach. Alphonso is not the kind of guy to say no in those moments. Canada Soccer needs to do a better job managing these players, in my opinion.”
Canada pressed on, and ultimately a last-16 finish – and a first-ever men’s World Cup knockout win – is nothing to be ashamed of. But there will understandably be those who wonder what could have been had the program better managed Davies’s fitness.
The run-up to a World Cup on home soil is tricky to navigate. Most matches carry lessened stakes as friendlies replace high-pressure qualifiers. Coaches must find alternative methods to build team spirit and discover which players are ready for the big moments. Perhaps the US match in which he was injured was deemed big enough – they were playing a local rival – to test Davies. But he could have been withheld with an eye on a bigger objective: keeping the nation’s star player fit, given his already considerable track record of injuries.
On Saturday, Huoseh’s claim that Canada’s players weren’t adequately managed looked prescient. Facing one of soccer’s highest-pressure scenarios, Jesse Marsch was unable to call upon his most dynamic and dependable option.
That situation was brought into sharp focus by Davies after the Morocco match. “To be honest, obviously, we want players on the pitch that are 100% to play the game and 100% to give everything,” Davies said, “and I felt like I wasn’t there yet, and so this is why we made the decision – or I made the decision – to sit out.”
On a grand occasion where his national team needed him most, he wasn’t able to “give everything” – a calamitous conclusion to an otherwise successful World Cup for Canada.
