Bayern star
Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies will be crucial for the Canadian men’s national team at the upcoming World Cup in Qatar. The most valuable left-back on the planet is not only Canada’s biggest star but one of the faces of the tournament overall.
As such, the relief felt across the country was huge when Bayern announced on Sunday that Davies would be fit for the World Cup after picking up a knock in the Bundesliga game against Hertha Berlin on Saturday. “The doctors told me that I will be fine in two weeks,” Davies said. “I still have a little bit of pain, but overall, I feel good, and I will be 100% for the World Cup.”
Davies noted that the scheduling of the World Cup right in the middle of the season was a little bit bizarre and that there was concern about players picking up injuries. “There were a lot of games at the beginning of the season before the World Cup,” Davies said. “You try to prepare yourself for all these back-to-back games. But sometimes your body just responds, we are all humans, and sometimes we get tired and tweak a muscle or something.”
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Alphonso Davies: World Cup participation is “very special”
It now, however, appears that Davies has left the injury mostly behind him, and the 22-year-old looked in a good mood when he sat down with the international media this week to answer questions about his debut on the World’s biggest stage. “For me, it is all very special,” Davies said. “We haven’t made it to a World Cup in 36 years, and we are happy to have qualified for this one after a very tough journey.”
The last time Canada qualified was at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. Placed in a group with the Soviet Union, Hungary, and France, Canada lost all three games and failed to score a goal. “We just want to take each game step-by-step,” Davies said about the goals at this World Cup. “We don’t want to set a goal and be disappointed if we don’t make it. Instead, we are going into this with the mindset to be one of the toughest teams to play against in our group.”
Canada is in a group with Belgium, Croatia, and Morocco. A tough group for a team that has no previous World Cup experience. But the team coached by head coach John Herdman has been defying the odds throughout the entire qualification cycle, first making it to the Octagon and then qualifying in first place ahead of the United States and Mexico.
Davies on World Cup group: “A tough road ahead of us”
“The angle in the group stage is to make it out,” Davies said. “That’s a tough, tough road ahead, but we believe that we can make it. We just need to be a tough team to play against.”
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For Canada, this tournament is to build momentum for the 2026 World Cup, which will be held in North America. Two Canadian cities, Vancouver and Toronto, will host games during that tournament, and Canada want to use the experience in 2022 to build momentum for 2026, a tournament that could make a big difference for the sport in Canada and North America, in general.
“Us making the World Cup this year will do a lot for the country in 2026,” Davies said. More and more people will focus on football. People who weren’t football fans will now be tuning in to watch the men’s national team play. Football in Canada is growing, and it will get even bigger, especially with the women doing well already and the youth teams performing—the next generation will now have people to look up to.”
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