VANCOUVER \u2014 Canada captain Alphonso Davies will be available for his country\u2019s second World Cup game against Qatar on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Davies) has been in training this week,\u201d Canada head coach Jesse Marsch said during a press conference. \u201cWe\u2019ll see how the match goes and then make a decision on how we would choose to use them (Davies and centre-back Mo\u00efse Bombito).\u201d<\/p>\n
Davies was injured during the second leg of Bayern Munich\u2019s Champions League semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain on May 6. The left-back\u2019s timeline for recovery was expected to be 4-6 weeks. Wednesday\u2019s press conference marked exactly six weeks since Davies sustained his injury.<\/p>\n
Davies\u2019 availability has been a fertile topic of discourse after arriving in Canada camp on June 1. Marsch said when the team\u2019s World Cup roster was announced that Davies would play at some point and yet the 25-year-old has remained in return-to-play protocol. That means he has trained both with the team and on his own with Matthias Blankenburg, an independent specialist trainer, as part of an arrangement between Bayern, Davies and Canada Soccer.<\/p>\n
While Bombito also did not play in Canada\u2019s opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina, a 1-1 draw, he did remain in full training for Canada in the lead-up to Thursday\u2019s game against Qatar. Marsch confirmed on Wednesday that Bombito would be available to play against Qatar.<\/p>\n
When Davies has trained in Vancouver, he has looked far more nimble and powerful than he did during Canada\u2019s camp in Montreal. Davies last played for Canada in March 2025 during the Nations League third-place game against the United States, in which he tore his ACL.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Tuesday\u2019s training session, Canada Soccer said it would no longer be providing updates on Davies\u2019 injury status. The organization had previously given daily updates before training on Davies and the rest of Canada\u2019s players.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlphonso is looking really good, right? And so it\u2019s just a matter of \u2018OK, what kind of game is it, what kind of moment is it, and how do we feel Alphonso can contribute right now?\u2019 But he\u2019s ready, he\u2019ll be available,\u201d Marsch said.<\/p>\n
Canada Soccer\u2019s approach to Davies\u2019 health updates suggests an element of gamesmanship during the World Cup. Marsch continued to keep possible lineup changes close to his vest on Wednesday, stating \u201cI\u2019m not giving that information\u201d when asked if he would make changes from his starting XI in Canada\u2019s World Cup opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Friday.<\/p>\n
Canada Soccer did, however, provide an update on centre-back Alfie Jones on Tuesday, stating he was in a \u201cpersonal recovery day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones did not train with Canada on Wednesday and Marsch said that the Middlesbrough defender will not play against Qatar. The centre-back has made just one appearance \u2014 as a substitute in Canada\u2019s June 1 friendly against Uzbekistan \u2014 since an ankle injury and ensuing surgery. Jones has since suffered a setback in his recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER \u2014 Canada captain Alphonso Davies will be available for his country\u2019s second World Cup game against Qatar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,103818,17267,561,82],"class_list":["post-744755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fifa-mens-world-cup","tag-qatar","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}