Canadian coach Marsch's faith in Promise David's recovery kept forward working to fulfill World Cup dream

Chris Jones reports on Canada's World Cup team from Charlotte, N.C.

Promise David, the most beautifully open of books, pulled out his phone and began scrolling through the photos in it. He had asked his doctors to take pictures of their surgery on his ruptured hip tendon, because he wanted to know more about his body and how it works and how he might make it work again.

“I wanted to understand it,” he said, before he held up the first of a series of pictures: his skin cut through and clamped open; the gleaming white of his tendon, shining under the hospital lights; the wires that will remain inside of him forever that reattached it to his bone; the blood-red acreage of his massive quadriceps, now lifted back into place.

He showed another, and another, the way a different 24-year-old might look at travel photos and marvel at the places he’d seen.

“It was a s--t injury,” he said. “S--t timing. I was going to give up, I’m not going to lie to you. They told me it was going to be six months. I started doing calculations. I was like, I am so cooked. I was already planning to go on vacation in Dubai.”

That was at the end of February. His calculations put him back on the field at the end of August, well after Canada’s home World Cup. Instead, at the end of May, he’s in training camp in Charlotte, about to rejoin the squad that he thought he’d be watching on TV in the desert.

The final roster won’t be named until Friday. But Jesse Marsch, Canada’s head coach, has given every indication that David — his towering, goal-hungry forward — will be part of his team.

Davies injury update? Should Priso make Canada’s World Cup squad? FT Dayne St.Clair

“Tobi looks good,” Marsch said after training on Tuesday. (David plays as Promise