{"id":567256,"date":"2026-03-28T20:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/567256\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T20:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T20:42:09","slug":"canada-battles-back-to-draw-iceland-in-toronto-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/567256\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada battles back to draw Iceland in Toronto friendly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                <a class=\"gh-article-tag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tfcrepublic.ca\/tag\/canmnt\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">CanMNT<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gh-article-excerpt is-body\">The Canadians&#8217; World Cup preparation hit a small speed bump in Saturday\u2019s stalemate at BMO Field. <\/p>\n<p>                            <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tfcrepublic.ca\/author\/john-molinaro\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-profile-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/FvUog8Oe_400x400.jpg\" alt=\"John Molinaro\"\/><br \/>\n                            <\/a><\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/laryea-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Canada battles back to draw Iceland in Toronto friendly\"\/><br \/>\n            TFC&#8217;s Richie Laryea in action against Iceland. (Photo courtesy of Canada Soccer)<\/p>\n<p>            Canada 2 (David 67\u2019, 76\u2019), Iceland 2 (\u00d3skarsson 9\u2019, 21\u2019) \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Canadians give up 2 1st half goals for 1st time under Marsch\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Marcelo Flores, Ralph Priso earn their 1st official caps\u00a0\u00a0Cyle Larin has gone 12 games without a goal for Canada \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO \u2013 The road to the 2026 FIFA World Cup is proving to be rockier than expected for Canada.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Down two goals at halftime, Canada needed a pair of second-half penalties to come from behind and earn a 2-2 draw against Iceland in Saturday\u2019s international friendly at BMO Field.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Juventus forward Jonathan David saved Canada\u2019s blushes by converting both attempts from the penalty spot before an announced crowd of 26,328.<\/p>\n<p>With Canada\u2019s World Cup campaign set to kick off in less than 80 days, a result like this would normally set off major alarm bells. But this draw comes with somewhat of an asterisk considering a short-handed Canada was dealing with a rash of injuries and was missing its captain, its two starting centre backs and its two top central midfielders.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So, it\u2019s not exactly fair to read too much into this when trying to predict Canada\u2019s fortunes this summer. Still, Canada is 30th in the current FIFA rankings, 45 spots above Iceland, and has more than enough talent and depth that it should have been able to beat the modest European nation who failed to qualify for the World Cup.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                This post is for paying subscribers only<br \/>\n            <a class=\"gh-btn\" data-portal=\"signup\" href=\"#\/portal\/signup\" style=\"color:#b00707\">Subscribe now<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Already have an account? <a data-portal=\"signin\" href=\"#\/portal\/signin\">Sign in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CanMNT The Canadians&#8217; World Cup preparation hit a small speed bump in Saturday\u2019s stalemate at BMO Field. TFC&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-567256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}