{"id":582316,"date":"2026-04-04T19:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/582316\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T19:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:29:12","slug":"in-torontos-little-italy-fans-line-up-to-swap-jerseys-and-embrace-team-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/582316\/","title":{"rendered":"In Toronto\u2019s Little Italy, fans line up to swap jerseys and embrace Team Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TORONTO \u2014 Fans lined a chilly street in Toronto&#8217;s Little Italy outside Caf\u00e9 Diplomatico for Canada Soccer\u2019s \u201cOur Game Now\u201d World Cup jersey swap.<br \/>\n The Canada jerseys ran out in under 30 minutes, with scarves, hats and posters also disappearing fast.<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO \u2014 Fans lined a chilly street in Toronto&#8217;s Little Italy outside Caf\u00e9 Diplomatico for Canada Soccer\u2019s \u201cOur Game Now\u201d World Cup jersey swap.<\/p>\n<p>The Canada jerseys ran out in under 30 minutes, with scarves, hats and posters also disappearing fast.<\/p>\n<p>Canada Soccer announced the event after the Italian team lost a chance to quality for World Cup 2026, being hosted in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, after a surprising loss to Bosnia-Herzegovina earlier this week. <\/p>\n<p>Father-and-son duo Amil and David Ivascu snagged the final jersey while keeping their Italian shirts.<\/p>\n<p>Noah Brown, 13, swapped his Italy jersey for two Canada jerseys, grinning that he\u2019d \u201cprobably support Canada\u201d if the teams ever met in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Longtime fan Raymond Chang, following soccer for 50 years, said he was thrilled to take part despite Italy missing the World Cup.<\/p>\n<p>Paulo Senra, Canada Soccer&#8217;s chief communications and content officer, framed the event as a celebration of diversity, heritage and community passion.<\/p>\n<p>This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 04, 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Sandra Ezekwesili, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Fans lined a chilly street in Toronto&#8217;s Little Italy outside Caf\u00e9 Diplomatico for Canada Soccer\u2019s \u201cOur&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-582316","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\/582316","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=582316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}