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.
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“Tobi looks good,” Marsch said after training on Tuesday. (David plays as Promise David, but he prefers to be called Tobi in civilian life.)
“That’s all I need,” David said Wednesday.
In the initial aftermath of his injury, David was in something like shock. He suffered it during a game with Union Saint-Gilloise on Feb. 21, when he landed awkwardly after a challenge. He probably should have torn his ACL, but his enormous frame redirected the energy to his left hip, which blew out. He heard a pop and felt his quadriceps sag.
“I knew right away,” he said. “Paper tearing, muscle. Pop, tendon.”
Two days later, before he’d had his surgery, he went to training, “like I was a robot,” he said. “I was so mentally broken, I changed into my training clothes and acted like I was going to train. And then I remember watching my teammates train, and I just started crying.” His professional career was interrupted; his World Cup dreams were gone.
That’s when Marsch called him. “I’m going to hold out as long as possible,” Marsch said, “as long as you promise to do everything you can.”
“So,” David said, “I did everything I could.”
First came the surgery, and his unusual photo shoot. “Oh my God, I loved the drugs,” he said. “It wasn’t even sleep. It was like time travel. I woke up and started terrorizing the hospital. I was flirting with nurses. I was revealing dark past secrets.”
It’s important to understand how David exists in the world. He makes unfiltered people seem reserved and reserved people very uncomfortable. (Asked about Canada’s World Cup prospects, he said: “I want us to advance because that means more money in our pockets. I’ve got a TD account that’s empty right now.”)
But he has a deeply serious side, too, when it comes to keeping his namesake promises.
“I’ve had coaches who have discarded me when times were good,” he said. “Now I have one who didn’t discard me when times were bad. It meant a lot.”
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He threw himself into rehab. “It was military,” he said. Monday to Friday, he did two sessions of physiotherapy. In between, he slept and ate. Every weekend, he went to watch soccer — in the stands at Union Saint-Gilloise, or for other Belgian league games featuring Canadian teammates Luc de Fougerolles and Nathan Saliba — to remind himself of the cause of his labours.
His comeback timetable accelerated. Each MRI revealed a remarkable progress.
If anyone asked whether he’d make it back in time for the World Cup, he said no. “Deep down, though, I knew it was yes,” he said. “I knew I’d make it.”
That’s the opposite of most people’s search for belief. Normally, people speak their aspirations into existence. For one of the first times in his unfiltered life, David kept his thoughts to himself. He’s not sure why, exactly. “I don’t know,” he said. “My brain told me to do that, so I did it.”
His brain tells him a lot of things. Asked if he’s begun imagining himself in a World Cup game, he said: “No, I’m picturing dinner.” (Pasta with red sauce, specifically.)
Asked what he’s learned about himself after his recovery, he said: “I think I could regrow a limb if I lost it, in all seriousness. I could regrow a f–king limb if I wanted to. I have a s–t immune system. If I get a cold, I’m dying. But in terms of regrowth, if we want to start a new colony on Mars, I should be the number one candidate.”
David won’t be going to Mars anytime soon. But he will be in Toronto on June 12 for Canada’s opening match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. And, according to him, he will be scoring a goal in Vancouver, against either Switzerland or Qatar. “I have this weird thing where I can call out goals before I score them,” he said. “I don’t know which game, but it will be in Vancouver.”
The way he said it, it didn’t sound like a boast. It sounded like Promise being Promise, and there was no reason not to believe him.
