Canada’s head coach Jesse Marsch was confident on Friday, after learning two of his team’s three opponents in next summer’s World Cup. That confidence is ringing through with his players as well.Patrick Smith/Getty Images
In the immediate aftermath of learning their World Cup fate next summer, Jesse Marsch and his players were still bullish on their chances of progression.
Why wouldn’t they be? They will still be at home, after all. And while the draw didn’t come up trumps for the Canadians as it did for their fellow co-hosts (26th-ranked Australia will be the toughest opponent the U.S. faces; 22nd-ranked South Korea – and possibly 21st-ranked Denmark – for Mexico – Marsch’s men will still feel confident.
“I think that whoever we were going to draw was going to present challenges, but that we should also be confident,” the head coach told TSN. “I think where we sit right now, I think it’s about a middle-of-the-road draw. It’s not the hardest, it’s not the easiest, but I think we respect our opponents, and we’ll be ready to go.”
Cathal Kelly: Canada should want Italy in the World Cup
What is Canada’s path to winning the 2026 World Cup? Ask us your FIFA questions
Of course, the possibility of lining up against Italy for the first men’s World Cup match on Canadian soil on June 12 is, was and will be the main talking point, even if the four-time world champions need to come through playoffs against first Northern Ireland and then the winner of Wales and Bosnia-Herzegovina to claim their first berth since 2014.
As you might expect, it was for the players, too, with the squad sharing reactions on their group chat as the names were pulled out of proverbial hat.
“Look, [it’s] a home World Cup,” Alistair Johnston told TSN. “If it’s Italy, in Toronto, it is going to be, man, this might be the biggest sporting event in Canadian history.”
The Celtic full-back, who has been out injured since August, looked at the three games in order – against a European playoff winner in Toronto, world No. 51 Qatar in Vancouver on June 18, and then No. 17 Switzerland at the same venue on June 24 – and plotted a methodical approach to qualification. And like most others who watched the draw, that second game against Qatar looks inviting to Johnston.
“I’m not trying to put any bulletin board material out there,” he said. “… But it’s a team that I think that we all know and everyone will be looking at in this group, that if you want to get through, if you want to top the group, that’s probably a game that you’re going to need to win.”
In Johnston’s mind, if you can pick up three points from that Qatar game – no matter what happens in the opener on June 12 – it leaves Canada heading into the third game against Switzerland in firm control of its own World Cup destiny.
Marsch and Prime Minister Mark Carney in Montreal on Oct. 10.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
“And I think that that’s really all you can ask for in tournament football,” he said.
Like Johnston, Stephen Eustaquio is one of the holdovers from Canada’s breakthrough World Cup three years ago. The Porto midfielder, like many of his teammates, took a number of lessons home from Qatar, having competed at that level for the first time in their careers.
Arguably the biggest lesson that Eustaquio took from that tournament was the importance of getting off to a good start. Canada received an unforgiving lesson on that front three years ago, losing all to Belgium after bossing them for the majority of their game.
Potential Canada-Italy World Cup matchup in Toronto sets off cheers and jitters
“What I learned the most in that tournament is that the first game is vital, in my opinion,” Eustaquio told TSN. “Because if you don’t get any points in that first game, the second game, there’s a lot of pressure.”
If that opening game does turn out to be Italy – which won’t be determined until the end of March – Johnston says Marsch has prepared his players well. One of the tenets of the coach’s game plan is getting Canada to play effectively without the ball, which might just give it a chance against one of soccer’s blue bloods.
After all, Johnston adds, when you play against the best teams in the world, you likely won’t have the ball all that much, so it’s how you keep your composure, formation and discipline that will make all the difference.
“We not only feel that we can keep clean sheets against top teams, but that we can also throw a counter punch.”