House money
Canada has accomplished everything it could have hoped for at the World Cup. The rest is gravy
When it was first announced, more than eight years ago, that Canada would co-host a men’s World Cup alongside the United States and Mexico, it brought a simple response: hey, at least we’ll get to play in one.
At that point, getting into the tournament as one of the hosts was the only realistic way to do it. The Canadian men had only been once before, in 1986, and in 2017 they were ranked somewhere around 120th in the world.
My pal Mark, a frequent character in this newsletter and occasional photographic contributor, was a devoted supporter of the team at this point, part of a small but loyal band, and I remember thinking back then that it must have been incredibly fruitless.
Mark was in tears on Sunday. As were, I suspect, most of the long-term die-hards.
The rise of the men’s national team, the CMNT in the vernacular, is well known by this point. They started getting results under former coach John Herdman, qualified on merit for Qatar 2022, and crucially the program was able to recruit effectively, thanks in no small part to the fact of the home World Cup in 2026.
But coming into this World Cup, the team still had several boxes to tick. It had grown by giant leaps in recent years, but it was still an international minnow. The CMNT had not earned a World Cup point. It had not won a World Cup game. It had not advanced out of the group stage. And given that, obviously, it had not won a knockout-stage game at the tournament.
Sunday’s wild 1-0 over South Africa checked the last of those boxes. Canada is in the last 16 at the World Cup, a sentence that would have been utterly unfathomable not that long ago. In getting there, Jesse Marsch’s team has blown past expectations. You only have to look at the last World Cup to see how difficult it can be to get results at this level: Canada had stormed through CONCACAF qualifying, getting wins over regional powers Mexico and the United States on the way, and yet at the big tournament they looked very much like a team that had not been there before. There were flashes of brilliance, but moments of naiveté, too. They lost all three group games.
Once the draw for this tournament was made in December, it looked like Canada would finally be able to get on the board at a World Cup. Qatar was in their group, so it was easy to imagine a win, or at the very least a draw, and because 32 teams advanced out of the expanded 48-team field, it was also possible to game out scenarios where Canada might advance. Beat Qatar, and they probably only needed a point from one of their other two games, and so on and so forth.
But in its way, that only increased the pressure. Canada kind of had to get out of its group at this World Cup, because when the hell else was it going to get this kind of opportunity? The 6-0 smashing off Qatar essentially put that question to rest, and the subsequent 2-1 loss to Switzerland, while denting the vibes somewhat, didn’t keep Canada out of the knockout rounds.
Which brought us to Sunday. Truly, there was no way to know what to expect. On paper, Canada was a deeper team than South Africa, who were also coming off a historically massive win over South Korea that booked their surprise passage to the knockouts, but it’s not like the Canadians had any familiarity with this kind of stage. Plus, there was the ongoing injury crisis: Alphonso Davies still hadn’t played a minute at the tournament, they had loss Ismael Koné to that horrible broken leg, and Moise Bombito was not yet up to full fitness. While dealing with those problems, Marsch also had an unsettled attack, having started various combinations of forwards in the group stage. He was spinning a lot of plates.
As it happened, Marsch’s biggest move was not a lineup decision, but a tactical switch introduced midway through the first half. Instead of their usual aggression going forward, which had allowed South Africa to counter-attack effectively in the opening stages, Canada eased off and dared South Africa to do something with the ball while in possession.
South Africa did not want to do something with the ball in possession. For the rest of the match, Canada would try to attack when it had possession, and South Africa seemed happy to grind the game into dust. It meant Canada had almost all of the scoring chances, but through 92 minutes they couldn’t convert any of them.
Everyone of a Canadian persuasion who was familiar with tournament football had the same fear at this point: This game was going to go to extra time, and then penalties, and then South Africa was going to steal this thing. There was also the unpleasant fact that Davies, who had finally made his tournament debut in the 75th minute and immediately changed the gravity on the pitch, would probably not be able to finish another 30 minutes of extra time. Gah.
And then Stephen Eustaquio made the play of his life. After an attempted South African clearance, he took the ball with a touch off his chest, pulled back his right leg, and thumped a volley into the lower left corner. Holy shitballs.
Just like that, the stress was over. No extra time. No bloody penalties. The CMNT, having never before made it to the knockout rounds at a World Cup, is now undefeated in the knockout rounds at a World Cup.
It’s a great moment for the country, to be sure, but it’s a significant one, I think, for all those guys who scuffled along in the lean years: Dwayne De Rosario, Tosaint Ricketts, Julian De Guzman, Iain Hume and on and on. And the guys who were foundational to what has since been built: Kamal Miller, Steven Vitoria, Milan Borjan, Junior Hoilett.
And especially for the fans who suffered along with them. On Sunday, the once-unthinkable happened.
And now they get to try again on Saturday. Pressure’s off, lads. Might was well enjoy it.