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.