Alphonso Davies’ ‘will-he-or-won’t-he-play?’ saga continues
Canada’s star captain Alphonso Davies once again starts on the substitute’s bench for Canada, as the saga over whether he will see any action at this World Cup continues.
Before last Wednesday’s loss to Switzerland, a reporter asked head coach Jesse Marsch what she called “the requisite Alphonso Davies question.” The left back’s prolonged recovery from a series of hamstring and muscle strains had become a major subplot in Canada’s historic campaign.
“He’s trained with the team all week,” Marsch said. “He will not start, but he will be available to play.”
Following their narrow 2-1 defeat, Marsch said he’d lied, using Davies as a “decoy” to waste Swiss time and attention.
At a news conference in Los Angeles Stadium yesterday, Marsch said he never had any intention of playing Davies before the elimination games.
“We were fairly certain early on that playing in the group phase was unlikely,” he said.
Davies, speaking to reporters for the first time since the World Cup began, said it was “painful” to miss the entire group stage at a home World Cup. “The only thing you want to do is play football,” he said.
But now, apparently, he’s returned to form just in time for the knockout rounds.
“Now that we have Alphonso back and healthy and ready to perform, I think it’s a big moment for the team,” said Marsch — still without definitively saying whether Davies would see action today.
If Davies is in fact fit to play, it will raise the question: Why wasn’t he fit enough to play on Wednesday in another game that mattered, especially to the tens of thousands of fans in Vancouver?
