FIFA president Gianni Infantino oversaw the allotment of games to host nations Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.Dan Mullan/Getty Images
Ahead of the World Cup draw on Friday, the Secret Service fenced off a perimeter surrounding the Kennedy Center, stretching a block into Washington’s tony Foggy Bottom neighbourhood.
Entry into the secure area was a shambles. They had everyone line up for a while to go through metal detectors, but the line wasn’t moving. So they split it, and now there were two lines that weren’t moving. Then they decided lines were no good, and had the media lay their bags on the ground so that a sniffer dog could go over them.
It started to snow pretty hard in the middle of this. Everyone was frustrated in that wiry way people get when they don’t know the rules.
Amidst this tooing and froing, a local resident passed by on his morning dog walk – an older gentleman pulling along an absolutely ancient Beagle. He stopped just outside the fence and stood there watching.
A Secret Service guy holding an agitated Belgian Malinois barked at him to get moving.
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“What?” said the man. “Can you move along, sir …” – nodding at the Beagle – “… your dog is distracting my dog.”
“Distracting your dog?”
“Yes.”
“What are you talking about? I live here,” the man said, in the tone of someone unused to being ordered around.
The balance of power shifted – “I guess I’m sorry,” said the Secret Serviceman.
“You guess? I live here. What are you talking about? …” – at which point his voice jumped to shouting – “I LIVE HERE. I DIDN’T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS.”
Amen, brother.
Now that the full scope of Canada’s participation in the World Cup has become clear, we are that old man. We live here, and this wasn’t what we asked for.
I guess it was inevitable that our role was to be junior wingman to the U.S. and, to a lesser extent, Mexico. One has the soccer cash, while the other has the soccer pedigree. Canada was included to share some costs and make the whole thing seem holistic.
The co-bid was approved in the midst of the first Donald Trump term. At the time, it was inconceivable that he would still be in power eight years later. Most would have imagined this thing going down at a time of re-established global tranquillity, but here we are.
Friday’s cheese shoppe of a draw ceremony was a reminder of Canada’s place in that new order. We aren’t the junior partner any more. We’re an afterthought.
FIFA boss Gianni Infantino made that very clear. He fawned over Trump like he was hoping to date him. All lavish compliments with head slightly bowed. On the other hand, our prime minister was “Mister” Carney – some guy he met at a party somewhere. It was clear who mattered, and who didn’t.
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Then Wayne Gretzky showed up and blew whatever remained of Canada’s international reputation for seriousness out of the water.
For more than 200 years, Canada and the U.S. have had an arrangement. They get to be the more popular one, the cooler one, the hotter one and the more successful one. We get to be the smart one.
Watching our most globally famous sporting citizen approaching words like ‘Macedonia’ and ‘Curaçao’ as if he was being asked to read Sanskrit on live television put an end to that.
As many as a billion people watched that show. Millions more will have seen the memes. As far as the rest of the world is now concerned, we’re the hillbillies of North America. Wayne Gretzky just turned us stupid.
Within 24 hours, there were further insults. Part of the point of bidding on a World Cup is the hope of giving your citizens the opportunity to see the best players in the world on your home soil in games that really matter. More than 50 years on, Mexico is still making a meal out of the fact that Brazil and Diego Maradona were at their pinnacle in the two World Cups hosted by that country.
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After the draw, Canada was theoretically on tap for two England games and one France game. Obviously, we weren’t going to get all three. But one for sure, right? Maybe two.
Nope. None. FIFA wants all the good stuff in the U.S. Mexico at least gets Spain-Uruguay.
Canada gets electric encounters like Australia vs. UEFA Path C winner, New Zealand vs. Egypt and Ghana vs. Panama.
Of the 13 matches this country will host, only one is certain to catch the attention of the informed neutral – Germany vs. Ivory Coast. If everything breaks in the way you’d expect it (and it never does), Vancouver could host Italy vs. Portugal in the Round of 16. That matchup would be by far the most viewed sporting event in this country’s history.
And then that’s it for us. The remainder of the tournament takes place in the U.S.
Alexi Lalas and Ronaldo listen as FIFA president Infantino and host Andrés Cantor applaud and Francesco Totti and Hristo Stoichkov look on during the match schedule reveal for the 2026 World Cup in Washington.Chris Carlson/The Associated Press
So I don’t think you can say we are hosting the World Cup. We’re handling overflow. In Mexico, or many American cities, the also-rans would play in half-empty arenas. Not in Canada. You tell us it’s something they like in London and Paris, and we’ll beg you to take our money.
The World Cup will still be a ton of fun. In terms of general atmosphere, it’s not quite an Olympics great, or a U.S. college football game, but it’s still great. I suspect Canada will lean harder into this event than most countries where the sport is a huge deal. That’s just how we do it.
But the tournament is also a reminder of where we stand in the great, global friend group. We’re the one that everyone else remembers to invite an hour before the party starts.
Nobody cares if we can’t make it, or if we need to move the time. If we show up, great. If we don’t, fine. Once there, it’s on us to amuse ourselves.
If nothing else comes out of this, that sort of wake-up call is worth a few million bucks.