The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox.
Hello! It’s all kicking off over Canada’s captain and his ACL injury. We’re here to explain why.
On the way:
Davies backlash: Agent blames Canada coach Marsch over captain’s ACL injury
(Ringo Chiu / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)
Injuries happen. They’re facts of life for professional footballers. AI and technological advances would love to eradicate them but humans are humans, and humans break.
The most contentious injuries are those that could, would or should have been avoided, which is where we are with Alphonso Davies. Yesterday, TAFC brought you the news that the Bayern Munich left-back and Canada captain had torn an anterior cruciate ligament, meaning surgery and months of rehabilitation. That alone was a lot to digest.
Advertisement
But in the hours that followed, Davies’ agent, Nedal Huoseh, released a statement to OneSoccer in which he claimed the 24-year-old — injured in Sunday’s Concacaf Nations League third-place match between Canada and the USMNT — had not been fully fit to play in that game. Huoseh then went further, saying: “The expectation was he would not be in the XI. As a captain, I feel he was pressured to start by the coach.”
The coach in question is Jesse Marsch, and it should be said that, at this stage, Huoseh’s allegations are no more than that. Marsch has said nothing. Neither have Bayern. The only response came from Canada Soccer, which insisted it “always prioritised player safety and wellbeing. Anything suggesting otherwise is untrue”.
We know Davies picked up a knock in Canada’s semi-final defeat against Mexico last week. We know he started against the United States regardless — and while the outcome of the third-place match might have massaged the odd ego, there’s no way of spinning it as a critical fixture.
Davies will miss Bayern’s domestic and European run-in, and a long stretch of Canada’s preparation for the 2026 World Cup. We also have the irregular scenario of an agent (of an international captain, no less) directly challenging the integrity of a coach, something Marsch will have to address at some point. It might be that he and Canada are being unfairly implicated — but it’s a mess either way.
100 matches in 16 months?
Every serious injury sustained draws attention to FIFA’s morbidly obese calendar. The fixture congestion is not causing every fitness problem, far from it, but medical progress can only mitigate so much when players are running through treacle.
The Athletic’s Steve Madeley has produced a slightly scary overview of the 16 months before the next World Cup starts. Factoring in the Africa Cup of Nations, there are names out there — including Chelsea’s Nicholas Jackson (above) — who could rack up 100 competitive matches by the time FIFA’s 2026 showpiece ends.
Advertisement
Put bluntly, top-level football is consuming every day and every week of every month. How responsible the intensity was for Davies’ ACL is moot but here he is, beyond use for the foreseeable future. He’s only just finalised a tricky contract renewal in Munich, too. Injuries happen, but we haven’t heard the last of this.
News round-up
- This is fascinating: Brazil are renewing efforts to persuade Carlo Ancelotti to manage them through the 2026 World Cup. It kind of makes sense all round. It isn’t working out with Dorival Junior in charge and the suggestions that Ancelotti will leave Real Madrid at the end of the season won’t go away.
- Vinicius Junior laboured through Brazil’s 4-1 hammering at the hands of Argentina on Wednesday, and he pulled no punches by saying the Selecao need to “rethink everything we’ve been doing” — not exactly a vote of confidence in the man in the technical area.
- Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari owner, QSI, is considering buying Spanish second-division side Malaga, a club who have fallen on hard times. QSI’s portfolio already includes a 22 per cent stake in Portugal’s Braga. It certainly has the funds to expand.
- Arsenal Women produced a first-rate fightback to overturn a 2-0 deficit and reach the last four of the Champions League by beating Real Madrid 3-2 on aggregate. Alessia Russo’s double was decisive in setting up a semi against eight-time winners Lyon. What a difference a well-tended pitch makes.
- FIFA is under fresh pressure to recognise Afghanistan’s women’s team and allow them to play in official tournaments. The squad are excluded because they aren’t recognised by the Taliban-controlled country’s national federation — something FIFA insists on.
- The new name of NWSL expansion team BOS Nation FC? Boston Legacy FC. Fingers crossed it sticks.
Money Talks
Not before time, FIFA has cut to the chase about how its $1billion (£770million) treasure chest will be divvied up among the 32 sea dogs at this summer’s Club World Cup (CWC). It’s a little complex, so here goes.
A total of $475m will be distributed based on performance as follows (per club):
- In the group stage, $2m for each win and $1m for each draw
- $7.5m for reaching the round of 16, $13.125m for qualifying for the quarter-finals, $21m for making the semis and $30m for progressing to the final
- $40m for the CWC winner.
The remaining $515m is to split into additional participation payments. European sides will get between $12.81m and $38.19m (via a ranking “based on sporting and commercial criteria”, whatever that means) while Oceania’s only representative, Auckland City from New Zealand, stand to earn $3.58m — disparity that proves which clubs are most valuable to this tournament.
Let’s boil it down — if, say, Real Madrid come out on top in the United States, they could walk away with $125m for four weeks’ work. When you consider $125m equates to 11 per of their entire budget for 2023-24, the willingness to embrace FIFA’s new toy in the face of extreme fixture congestion needs no explanation, beyond the moolah.
Around TAFC
(Christian Letourneau; design: Eamonn Dalton)
- India is the globe’s most populous country, with 1.4bn people, but it’s a market football hasn’t broken. Nor is the Indian Super League booming as intended. Is that about to change? Rory Smith and Christian Letourneau put together this fantastic feature on the outlook there.
- Pablo Maurer went canvassing opinion about the ailing USMNT among retired internationals. Check out Landon Donovan’s verdict: “I’m just getting tired of watching all this s***.” Blimey.
- If you know your football-boot history, you’ll have heard of Craig Johnston — the inventor of the Adidas Predators. There’s so much more to the life story of Liverpool’s former title-winner, however, including the tale of how he almost had a leg amputated as a boy. He told it to Tom Burrows.
- I enjoyed Simon Johnson harking back to a Premier League record that might stand forever: Chelsea conceding just 15 goals in the 2004-05 season. The defence was built lock, stock and a barrel under Jose Mourinho. Incredible.
- Set aside some time for Michael Cox’s analysis of Argentina’s rout of Brazil. He has spotted some surprising trends in the tactics, including a convention-breaking move away from the fixation on tight structure. Manager Lionel Scaloni has them licked.
- More politics in Spain, this time over the proposed selection of San Sebastian as a host city for the 2030 World Cup. The mayor of Vigo, on Spain’s Atlantic coast, says the process is being manipulated to exclude his own city. There’s alleged audio evidence and everything. Figures within the Spanish football federation have denied the allegations.
- Most clicked in Wednesday’s TAFC: the Lionel Messi trading card shakedown.
Catch a match
(Selected games, ET/UK time)
La Liga: Barcelona vs Osasuna, 4pm/8pm — ESPN+/Premier Sports.
Women’s Champions League quarter-final second leg: Barcelona (4) vs Wolfsburg (1), 1.45pm/5.45pm; Chelsea (0) Manchester City (2), 4pm/8pm — both DAZN/TNT Sports.
And finally…
𝑭𝒍𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑬𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊
🇦🇪 Sultan Adil soars up high to score a dramatic late winner! 🦸♂️#AsianQualifiers | #PRKvUAE pic.twitter.com/1OyQw1HLMP
— #AsianQualifiers (@afcasiancup) March 25, 2025
“Sportspeople should regard their training programmes as combat orders given by the party, and their training arena as a battlefield for defending their country.”
Not my words but the words of North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, still undefeated in the haircut stakes. They had no effect on the men’s national side, who were mugged by a 98th-minute goal from the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday (above) and dropped out of World Cup qualifying, but in the arena of women’s football, the country is putting its money where the dear leader’s mouth is. I’d never have guessed until I watched this Tifo Football short video.
Advertisement
We’ll gloss over the fact that, in 2015, North Korea were banned from the Women’s World Cup over failed doping tests (allegedly related to medicine made from deer glands — no kidding).
At present, their women are world champions at the under-17 and under-20 levels (also no kidding). So if you hadn’t already, jot down Pyongyang as a tough place to go.
(Top photo: Omar Vega/Getty Images)
