#
cropped_gettyimages-1347502346.jpg

The soccer revival that led Canada to the verge of the World Cup

Jonathan Osorio stood inside Toronto FC’s training facility this month and was invited to think big. What would it mean to Canadian soccer if the men’s national team reached the World Cup?

Some players would have deflected the question, citing work left to do. The Canadian midfielder answered head-on.

“That would be the beginning of the change of how football is perceived in this country,” Osorio said.

“Among youth, it’s the most played sport. Pretty soon, it will be the most watched sport. That’s my prediction. It starts with us making the World Cup, and then it continues with the team being successful after that. I think we have everything in place for that to happen: the structure, and we definitely have the crop of players.”

Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images

Barring calamity, Canada will play in Qatar in November. They lead CONCACAF’s qualifying table through 11 matches, conceding only five goals in the round. Strikers Cyle Larin and Jonathan David have scored as many times apiece.

Milan Borjan posted three clean sheets in the last international window as Alphonso Davies, sidelined due to myocarditis, celebrated the wins on Twitch. When Davies is healthy, the Canadians get to lean on a transcendent star, the swaggerful left back whose speed and on-ball wizardry are unparalleled in the region.

To make it to Qatar, the Canadians need two points from three fixtures that remain: at Costa Rica on Thursday, against Jamaica in Toronto on Sunday, and next Wednesday at Panama. Zero points could suffice if Panama and Costa Rica don’t win out.

Qualifying would make the world aware of Canada’s soccer renaissance. The men slumped as low as No. 120 in the FIFA rankings in 2017, the year before John Herdman was hired as manager to engineer a turnaround. Herdman’s side ranks No. 33 now, evoking memories of the fabled 1986 team – Canada’s last and only World Cup qualifier.

Just like that, Canada resembles a soccer nation. The women’s team that Herdman coached to Olympic bronze medals in 2012 and 2016 broke through for gold last summer in Tokyo. Supporters foresee the men competing for wins in Qatar and at home in 2026, when Canada co-hosts the World Cup with the United States and Mexico.

When that trio convened to bid for the tournament, Canada was the continent’s weakling. Now Osorio and his teammates say they want to make a statement in Qatar, vocalizing the self-belief and fearlessness that, they tend to agree, stem from Herdman.

“He’s a transformational leader. He oozes charisma. He’s put together this incredible vision. He’s sold everybody on it: that the impossible is possible,” said Terry Dunfield, the OneSoccer broadcast analyst who played for the national team in the early 2010s. “When (Herdman’s game plan is) tested under pressure, there’s this incredible brotherhood that really supports that vision.”

Iconic goals and saves have highlighted the Canadians’ storybook campaign. Throughout it, they’ve earned points against all comers in different settings.

In 1-1 road draws against the region’s two giants, Canada held the U.S. to two shots on target and, courtesy of Osorio’s left boot, netted the country’s first goal since 1980 at Mexico’s Azteca cathedral. Sam Adekugbe dove into a snowbank pitchside when Larin scored on Mexico in Edmonton.

The windchill dropped to minus-14 degrees Celsius that night and hit minus-11 two months ago in Hamilton, when Canada’s one-touch passing on the counterattack sprung Larin for an early goal.

“When you’re looking at strikers at the international level, you need players who are of the moment: players who can finish a game, who can take a half-chance and put it in the net,” said Bobby Smyrniotis, Larin’s youth coach in the Toronto area and the manager of Forge FC in the Canadian Premier League.

“You look at the combination play and the verticality and his movement (on Larin’s goal in the U.S. match). His finish was world class,” Smyrniotis said. “It’s exactly what you need in the game.”

When Panama visited Toronto, Davies hustled to support a couple of teammates in a shoving match, jawing with the Panamanians as a scuffle broke out by the corner flag. Then he did this:

“You’ve got a difference-maker who can change a game in a second. You’ve got somebody who’s helped spark an entire country. That goal at BMO Field is etched in the back of the mind of every soccer fan, every sport fan, in Canada,” Dunfield said.

“I think there’s an infectiousness. There’s an energy he brings into camp. And if I’m playing against Canada and I look across and I see him in the tunnel, it’s: Oh, shit. It’s Alphonso Davies.”

Depth helped the Canadians withstand Davies’ absence during the last window, when they secured nine points without being scored on as he waited to resume training with Bayern Munich. (That finally happened last week.) Davies and his dad screamed on a Twitch stream when Larin struck in Hamilton, saluting Larin’s record 23rd goal for the men’s team.

Tajon Buchanan’s pace, like Stephen Eustaquio’s pinpoint playmaking, boosts the attack and adds dimension to Canada’s physical approach. Paul Dolan, the TSN analyst and retired national team goalkeeper, calls Herdman’s squad the most adaptable in the region. From any formation, Canada can clog the area, control possession, or step on the gas as circumstances demand.

“What epitomizes the way they’ve played is that they were in Azteca Stadium, where so many opposing teams across the federation, across the world, who’ve ever gone into that stadium against a world-class team in Mexico have just sat back and hoped that they didn’t lose,” Dolan said. “Canada was a dominant team in much of the game.”

Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images

In Canada’s signature home wins, Borjan made goal-line saves to stymie Mexico in stoppage time, and he thumped his chest in Hamilton – his hometown – after rising to stuff an American header. The players he backstops hail from major European clubs: Eustaquio at Porto, David at Lille, Buchanan at Club Brugge. Osorio’s Toronto FC teams have played for and won the MLS Cup. Davies helped pace Bayern to the 2020 Champions League title.

They “instill confidence in each other,” Osorio said, when they unite under one flag.

“These young guys don’t have that sense of fear. They don’t look at other nations or other players bemused by their star power. They’re at that level themselves,” said Talal Al-Awaid, Davies’ former youth coach in Edmonton.

“All credit to John, who also pushes them and instills that belief: We’re just as good as anyone.”

                    

The last time Canada clinched a World Cup berth, on Sept. 14, 1985, they scored off corner kicks to beat Honduras 2-1 in blustery St. John’s, Newfoundland, the country’s eastern tip. Some Honduran fans flew by mistake to Saint John, New Brunswick. The grass at King George V Park was wet and bumpy, hampering an opponent that preferred to host matches in the afternoon heat. Clearances soared over the stands and landed on parked cars.

“God love them, but it’s not a pitch that would be up to today’s standard,” said Dolan, Canada’s backup keeper that day in St. John’s. “But that’s part of the charm of the whole experience. We had the best type of home crowd we possibly could: 100% Canadian supporters right up against the touchline.

“It was, if I look back on it, the perfect setting for us to qualify.”