A big part of Canada’s remarkable run through World Cup qualification to this point (which has seen them atop the CONCACAF table through eight matches heading into Thursday’s matches) has been Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich left back who’s been regularly named as one of the world’s top players recently. However, Davies isn’t available for the Canadian team’s away match against Honduras Thursday thanks to developing myocarditis (heart muscle inflammation) following a COVID-19 infection. So, instead, he provided second-screen commentary on the leadup to the match and then some of the match himself on his Twitch channel:
This is some fun stuff.
"In 2012, we lost 8-1, we got pummeled. Holy sh*t, we got destroyed. That was way before I was on the team."
– Alphonso Davies on Twitch. https://t.co/uk5pkZkSCE
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) January 28, 2022
It would not be surprising at all to see these kinds of second-screen commentaries from athletes continue to take off. There have been plenty of moves on this front in the past, including Curt Schilling trying something similar on Periscope way back in 2016. But the particular popularity of ESPN’s ManningCast (or Monday Night Football With Peyton and Eli, if you work for ESPN) will certainly lead to a larger expansion of alternate feeds. And this one’s particularly interesting given that it’s from someone who would be playing in this game under normal circumstances. Maybe there’s a wider opportunity there for injured athletes, or those ruled out of big events due to COVID. At any rate, this led to something interesting from Davies (seen at left at top) Thursday.
[Alphonso Davies on Twitch]
