Canada’s Davies ready to play World Cup game vs. South Africa: Marsch

Alphonso Davies is ready to finish what he started. 

It’s been more than a year since Canada’s captain tore his anterior cruciate ligament while playing for the national squad at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. 

He’s expected to return to the same field on Sunday to play in his first game of this summer’s FIFA World Cup when the Canadians take on South Africa in the round of 32. 

“Now that we have Alphonso back and healthy and ready to perform, I think it’s a big moment for the team, and a big boost for the team,” head coach Jesse Marsch said in a press conference on Saturday. 

Davies returned from the ACL tear to play for his club team, Bayern Munich, but a string of other ailments have kept him from seeing action with Canada since March 2025. 

The latest was a hamstring injury he picked up while playing in a Champions League semifinal in early May. The lengthy recovery that followed forced him to the bench for Canada’s three World Cup group-stage games on home soil.

Watching from that vantage wasn’t easy, said the 25-year-old left back. 

“Obviously it was painful. The only thing you want to do is play football. That’s what I’m really passionate about,” Davies said on Saturday. “And I think the first game, watching it, I was eager to get on the pitch. Second game, even more so, and obviously the third game. I went to (Marsch) before the game. I asked him, ‘Do you think you know I can get a couple minutes?’”

While Marsch acknowledges Davies is the team’s best player, he opted against bringing him on for Canada’s group-stage finale against Switzerland last Wednesday.

“For me to go to tell our best player, and the guy that I know is a huge piece of everything we do, that we have to wait was also painful, right?” the coach said. “But we’ve done this in the best interest of Alphonso and his career and his health. And so you know it’s nice now that we can have a plan that leads to him being back on the pitch.”

The coach initially told reporters he expected Davies to play against Switzerland in Vancouver. After Canada fell 2-1 in the game, Marsch said his star talent had not, in fact, been ready to play and that he had used him as a “decoy” to disrupt Switzerland’s plans. 

As Canada prepares for Sunday’s knockout game against South Africa, Marsch is once again saying Davies is ready. 

He said on Saturday that high-level athletes are like Ferraris, and getting them back into game shape following an injury requires several different stages. 

“You have to really now maintain them and make sure that you’re hitting all the benchmarks before you let them really go and be free,” Marsch said. “And so there is a science behind how to recover from muscle injuries.

“What I said to (Davies) is I want him to go out on the pitch and be free, right? And I think that if we hit the benchmarks appropriately with the correct timing, then that provides him with a better foundation that mentally and intellectually, he’s done everything possible to prepare his body to be at his best.”

Davies joined the national squad in Edmonton at the end of May, bringing with him personal trainer Matthias Blankenburg, who has guided the former Vancouver Whitecap through return-to-play protocols. 

Blankenburg has been spotted at training sessions and during pre-game warm-ups working with his client one-on-one — work that Marsch said has paid off.

“I think it’s really important, especially when you’re the level of athlete that Alphonso is, having somebody who knows specifically what the demands of your body are,” he said. “And I think (Blankenburg’s) been a huge help to Alphonso. And we see him now in great form and great fitness. So, I think he’s more than ready for tomorrow.”

Marsch declined to reveal whether Davies will be in the starting lineup on Sunday or how many minutes he’s expected to play. 

He did say that Canada’s coaching staff have talked both about using their prize player as a left back and as a midfielder. 

“He’s a big X factor for us because he’s such a big talent. He’s very explosive in transition moments. He’s also a good footballer,” Marsch said. 

“There’s a lot of dynamic qualities that he brings to the team that make us even better. But even more so … is the effect that he will have on the team, being on the pitch. The belief they have in him, the belief he has in himself, I think, changes the possibility of what the potential of our team is and what we can do in this tournament.”

For Davies, getting back onto the field at a World Cup “mean a lot.” 

He is intimately connected with the tournament.

Born in a refugee camp in Ghana after his parents fled civil war in Liberia, Davies grew up in Edmonton. He shared his story with the FIFA Congress in June 2018 as part of Canada’s bid to co-host this summer’s tournament. 

He then made history in 2022, scoring the nation’s first goal in a men’s World Cup. 

The Canadians have made history multiple times this summer, earning their first point with a 1-1 draw against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto on June 12 and their first win — a 6-0 drubbing of Qatar — in Vancouver on July 18. 

Despite the loss to Switzerland, Canada finished second in Group B and earned its first knockout game in the tournament. 

Being part of all of those moments has been special, Davies said, even if his participation looked different than he’d originally dreamt. 

“The first time I stepped on the pitch at (the stadium) in Toronto, it was so surreal, because I’ve never seen so many Canadians at a football match before,” he said. 

“It was honestly truly amazing. It brought tears to my eyes, because this is something that’s going to elevate the sport in the country so much.”