{"id":18631,"date":"2026-06-29T04:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T04:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18631"},"modified":"2026-06-29T04:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T04:01:30","slug":"world-cup-alphonso-davies-answers-canadas-prayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18631","title":{"rendered":"World Cup: Alphonso Davies answers Canada\u2019s prayers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

INGLEWOOD \u2014 In the 75th minute of Round of 32 match going nowhere, Canada defender Alphonso Davies stepped onto the SoFi Stadium pitch, into the World Cup for the first time this tournament, leaned down and touched the turf and then made the sign of a cross, many of his 41 million countrymen, those in the stadium Sunday afternoon, those watching at home from joining him in response to their answered prayers.<\/p>\n

Read more Time sure does fly when you\u2019re getting older<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThank you God.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cMerci mon Dieu.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Davies didn\u2019t score. He played less than 20 minutes, including stoppage time. But he was the difference in a historic 1-0 victory that gave Canada its first ever World Cup knockout stage win and a Round of 16 match-up with the Netherlands or Morocco in Houston Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou guys are Canadian heroes!\u201d Canada\u2019s U.S. born coach Jesse Marsch told the team afterward. \u201cCanadian heroes for the future children of this country who play this sport. This sport has a big future because of you guys. You should be so proud of who you are. You should be so proud of this game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Davies is not only a reflection of his sport\u2019s future but, as the son of Liberian refugees fleeing a bloody civil war, also reflects an increasingly diverse nation.<\/p>\n

Davies, the Bayern Munich standout, is not only Canada\u2019s best player; he is one of the best left backs in the world, the premier player in the North and Central America and Caribbean region. He has also been plagued by injury, the most recent ailment a pulled left hamstring suffered in a Bayern\u2019s UEFA Champions League semifinal against Paris Saint-Germain May 6. The injury kept Davies out of all three of Canada\u2019s first-round World Cup matches, including a 2-1 loss to Switzerland last week that relegated Canada to second place in Group B and cost it the opportunity to play its Round of 32 match at home in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Davies\u2019 injury just seemed to be the latest blow in a bad year in a series of bad years for Canada, already belittled as the \u201c51st state\u201d by President Trump, a sort of bilingual Greenland.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The beloved Canadian actress Catherine O\u2019Hara died in January. A month later, Team Canada lost in sudden-death overtime to a brash U.S. team in the men\u2019s Olympic ice hockey final. The Montreal Canadiens raised the nation\u2019s hopes of ending the country\u2019s 33-year Stanley Cup drought only to lose to a very non-Original Six team in the American Sun Belt, Carolina, in the Cup semifinals. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently announced it will no longer broadcast \u201cHockey Night In Canada,\u201d the country\u2019s national campfire since the 1950s, disappearing just as two other Canadian institutions, Eatons and Hudson\u2019s Bay, had earlier this century. The cost of hosting this World Cup with the U.S. and Mexico will cost the Canadian taxpayer billions.<\/p>\n

Thirty-five mills have closed in British Columbia this year. A record number of Canadians are relying on food banks.<\/p>\n

Things are so bad north of the border that Alberta is seriously considering bolting.<\/p>\n

In an October 19 referendum, Albertans will vote on the question: \u201cShould Alberta remain a province of Canada or should the Government of Alberta commence the legal process required under the Canadian Constitution to hold a binding provincial referendum on whether or not Alberta should separate from Canada?\u201dAs of Sunday, however, Alberta was still one of the provinces, another reason for Canadians to give thanks.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Davies was born to Liberian parents in Buduburam, a refugee camp set up in Ghana by the United Nations Commission for Refugees. Debean and Victoria Davies were fleeing the four-year Second Liberian Civil War that left 50,000 dead and saw the widespread use of child soldiers.<\/p>\n

Davies was 5 when the family immigrated to Canada, first to Windsor, Ontario, and then to Alberta. It was in Edmonton that Davies first began developing into the best CONCACAF player since Rafael Marquez anchored the backline for Mexico and Barcelona more than a decade ago. He was just 14 when he signed with Major League Soccer\u2019s Vancouver Whitecaps in 2015. A year later, he made his MLS debut. He was sold to Bayern in the summer of 2018 for an MLS record transfer fee of $13 million.<\/p>\n

Read more Dodgers take series from Padres with decisive 5th inning<\/a><\/p>\n

Davies\u2019 impact Sunday was felt almost immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Alfonso comes in, I know it\u2019s a big boost for the team. Obviously he\u2019s one of the best players, one of the best lead backs in the world, the best player we have on our team,\u201d said Canada forward Stephen Eust\u00e1quio.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the emotional boost that Davies gave Canada. It was how he lifted the match to another level, how he opened it up.<\/p>\n

He was barely on the pitch a minute when he sent a 40-yard surgical pass that created one of the game\u2019s best scoring opportunities. Three minutes later, he deftly threaded a pass through a series of South Africa defenders to create another prime scoring opportunity.<\/p>\n

From then on, it wasn\u2019t a matter of if Canada would score but when.<\/p>\n

Two minutes into stoppage time, Eustaquio, who plays for LAFC in MLS, struck a volley from a step outside the 18-yard box into the back of the net.<\/p>\n

For generations of Canadians, the country\u2019s \u201cI\u2019ll never forget where I was,\u201d JFK-type moment came on a Thursday, September 28, 1972, at 11:26 a.m. in Vancouver, 2:26 in the afternoon on Toronto\u2019s Yonge Street, 3:56 in the afternoon in Newfoundland.<\/p>\n

With 34 seconds left in the third period of the eighth and final game of the Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet Union at Moscow\u2019s Luzhniki Sport Palace, the score, 5-5, and series, 3-3-1, tied, the clock winding down on what had become a referendum on the Canadian identity and way of life, Team Canada\u2019s Paul Henderson scored.<\/p>\n

CBC announcer Foster Hewitt\u2019s call of \u201cHenderson has scored for Canada\u201d still echoes through the decades.<\/p>\n

So will that moment Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a strange feeling and not dissimilar to what all the fans of my Canadians felt back home and in the stands, and probably what you felt as well,\u201d Canada right back Alistair Johnston said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a moment of magic, and something just comes over your body, you see Steph sprinting away, and just the whole team sprinting. It\u2019s, it\u2019s one of those moments that you\u2019ll never forget where you were.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look, I think for Canadian sports history, it\u2019s going to be a moment where you\u2019re going to kind of know where you were when that moment happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s something that is not lost on us. We know that, you know, not only is this not only writing history in Canadian soccer, but in Canadian sport, and that\u2019s something that you know is something that\u2019s really, it\u2019s a magical, magical thing when you think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Josh Lowe\u2019s grand slam leads Angels to series victory<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Bayern Munich defender raised Canada to a different level in a historic win against South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18630,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soccer"],"yoast_head":"\nWorld Cup: Alphonso Davies answers Canada\u2019s prayers - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18631\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"World Cup: Alphonso Davies answers Canada\u2019s prayers - Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Bayern Munich defender raised Canada to a different level in a historic win against South Africa.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=18631\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Silicon Valley Moving Post\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-29T04:01:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/636e2e5a10a21cf87fe6eb5951e8a6b7\"},\"headline\":\"World Cup: Alphonso Davies answers Canada\u2019s prayers\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-29T04:01:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631\"},\"wordCount\":1198,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/0199f9365c487f7e7681d2ac58113287.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Soccer\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\\\/?p=18631\",\"name\":\"World Cup: Alphonso Davies answers Canada\u2019s prayers - 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