Canada’s men spent Wednesday morning on a light touch at Toronto FC’s training campus, jogging, loosening up and taking stock two days before their World Cup opener. It was matchday-minus-2 by the calendar and, for a team that wants this tournament to mean more than a brief appearance, it looked like the calm before a far bigger test on Friday afternoon.
That timing is why Canada Fc is drawing fresh attention now. The squad returned to the World Cup four years ago after nearly four decades away, then became the first side sent home in 2022 and finished with zero points, a flat ending to a return that had carried real hope. This time, the buildup has felt different, with a raucous community session on Monday drawing hundreds of schoolchildren and Alphonso Davies hearing the crowd chant, “Phonzieee, Phonzieee!”
Alistair Johnston did not hide what still lingers from Qatar. “Ahhhh. That was one of our biggest regrets in Qatar,” he said, adding that Canada knew “the whole country was right there” but could not give supporters “something to really grasp on to and ride the coat tails of.”
That failure matters because the mood around the team has shifted. Canada now has what many inside the sport view as its most gifted squad, with players spread across Bayern Munich, Juventus, Celtic, Villarreal and Sassuolo, and interest has grown since Jesse Marsch’s side reached the Copa América semi-finals. The crowd is no longer a distant thought, either. Rogers Stadium, an outdoor concert venue holding 52,000 for now, sits in a city where 17,000 seats were added to BMO Field downtown to turn it into Toronto Stadium for the World Cup this summer.
Johnston said that experience, and the pain that came with it, should make a difference now. “This summer now, we’re so much more experienced, less naive, less deer in the headlights. We’re ready for this moment and, this time, instead of having to feel that passion halfway around the world, it’s going to be right there in the stands, in the streets,” he said. Canada’s opener on Friday afternoon is the first chance to show whether that belief matches the team’s level.
