Promise David is on Canada’s first World Cup roster, a return that looked uncertain in February when a significant hip injury sent him into surgery and a long recovery. The 24-year-old forward has made it back in time for the 26-man squad, giving Canada a scorer who only months ago was fighting to keep his tournament dream alive.
That is why the timing matters now. Canada is days from opening its World Cup matches on home soil, and David is one of 13 debutants in a group that is trying to look settled before the pressure starts. He said he planned to wake up on Friday, watch anime, and maybe stop at McDonald’s after potentially playing in his first World Cup game. For a player who was in youth soccer in Croatia four years ago when Canada went to the 2022 World Cup, the journey has moved fast.
David’s season gave Canada a reason to believe the gamble would pay off. He scored 15 goals in 37 games for Belgium’s Royale Union Saint-Gilloise, then pushed through conversations with head coach Jesse Marsch and the grind of rehab to get ready in time. He said that if he had not recovered, making the squad would have been a failure. That is the edge in the story: this was not a ceremonial call-up for a player already secure. It was a race against pain, surgery and a deadline that would not move.
David described the recovery with the same bluntness he has brought to his rise. He said he “recover[s] like a superhuman,” credited the vitamins he ate as a kid, and added that the pain was severe enough that his mind blocked out some of it. He also joked that his tolerance for pain is not high, but his bank account needed to stay healthy too. It was a reminder that the cleanest part of the story — the roster spot — came after the messiest part of the work.
For Canada, the wider picture is just as clear. The team is one of the co-hosts welcoming the tournament back to North American shores, and players have appeared calm as the first matches approach. David was not a known name in the broader Canadian soccer picture in 2022. Now he is part of the group carrying the country into a home World Cup, and the remaining question is not whether he made it back. It is how much of the tournament he can turn that recovery into once the games begin.
