Alphonso Davies’s return to Canadian lineup complicated by club team Bayern Munich’s reported resistance
Alphonso Davies and the calendar are in a dead heat.
The countdown to Canada’s World Cup opener on June 12 in Toronto is picking up speed, now only weeks rather than months away. Davies, sidelined for the third time since February with a muscle tear, will be wishing for time to stop.
Canada’s captain has not played for the national team since March 2025, when he tore his ACL during the CONCACAF Nations League finals. He returned to Bayern Munich, his club side, in December, but recurrent muscle and hamstring complaints have left him, and his supporters, with some psychic wounds as well.
“Physically, I’m not worried about him,” Vincent Kompany, his manager, said recently. “But mentally, it’s extremely tough.”
Part of the challenge is the thorny timeline of his return to fitness, reportedly between four and six weeks. FIFA’s deadline for World Cup rosters is June 1.
Even if Davies is deemed fit enough to make the squad, he won’t risk playing in Canada’s two remaining friendlies before the World Cup, including the June 1 exhibition against Uzbekistan in Edmonton, his hometown.
That means his first game with the national side in more than a year could also be the most important in men’s program history: the opener against Bosnia-Hercegovina, the result of which will likely determine whether Canada advances to the knockout rounds for the first time.
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Imagine head coach Jesse Marsch’s position that afternoon.
Either he will have to sit Davies, one of the most dynamic fullbacks in the world but rusty and fragile, or he will have to bench someone like Richie Laryea, one of Canada’s most reliable players during Davies’s extended absence, to make room for him.
Compounding the drama is Bayern Munich’s long, looming shadow.
In February 2025, Davies signed an extension to 2030 with the German giants worth about $190 million. Weeks later, he suffered his ACL tear in the 12th minute of the third-place game between Canada and the U.S., and Bayern officials publicly threatened Canada Soccer with a lawsuit, calling its treatment of Davies “grossly negligent.”
Nedal Huoseh, Davies’s agent, also condemned Marsch, saying he’d pressured Davies to start, even though he “was not 100 per cent.”
Huoseh later walked back his claims and the lawsuit never materialized, but the German reporting of Davies’s latest injury is markedly more pessimistic than Canadian accounts. If the emphasis is on the four in “between four and six weeks” here, it’s very much on the six in Munich.
Officially, Bayern must release Davies for national-team duty. But Bild, the influential German tabloid, reported Tuesday on the intensifying behind-the-scenes battle between Bayern’s wishes for Davies to take the summer off and make a more complete recovery, and his once-in-a-lifetime dreams of featuring in a home World Cup.
Both positions are understandable. Unfortunately, no compromise exists between them. Either Davies is on the Canadian roster and plays, or he isn’t, and he doesn’t.
Never mind June 12. The real deadline is June 1.
Millar, Larin continue push to Premiership
The chances of a Canadian appearing again in next season’s Premier League are suddenly high. Liam Millar’s Hull advanced to the Championship playoff final after a surprise 2-0 aggregate win over favoured Millwall on Monday.
And Cyle Larin’s surging Southampton did the same after Tuesday’s thrilling 2-1 aggregate win over Middlesbrough, which needed extra time to settle it.
Millar started for Hull and will likely remain with the side if it wins promotion. Larin is on loan from Mallorca, leaving his status with the Saints less clear. The 31-year-old has regained his form since his February arrival in England, and Tonda Eckert, his manager, has expressed desire to make Larin’s move permanent. Mallorca will have to agree.
The Championship playoff final — the richest game in football because of its nine-figure financial stakes — will take place on May 22.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is coming to Canada — and it’s going to be the biggest in the competition’s history. It’s the first to be hosted in three countries — and Canada is hoping it’ll also have its first-ever World Cup win.
Johnston and ferocious defending
Canadian and Celtic defender Alistair Johnston made headlines over the weekend after he delivered a hard tackle to Mikey Moore of Rangers in a fiery Old Firm derby.
Johnston, who was sidelined for more than five months with a hamstring injury before his late-April return, won the ball with his sliding challenge — it had a bit of jump in it, too — before catching Moore’s ankle high. He received a yellow card. Pundits and Rangers fans, who came out on the losing end in more ways than one, thought he’d earned a red.
Either way, Johnston’s ferocious defending likely improved his odds of reclaiming his right-back role for Canada from understudy Niko Sigur.
Celtic will host Hearts on Saturday with the Scottish Premiership title on the line. Hearts, with a single-point lead headed into the season’s dramatic final day, will claim their first title since 1960 with a win or draw. If Johnston and Celtic win, they’ll raise the trophy for the 56th time, one more than arch-rival Rangers.
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