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Vermont Green FC plays a friendly match against the Canadian men\u2019s national soccer team on June 6 in Montreal ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Photo courtesy of Vermont Green FC<\/p>\nVermont Green FC plays a friendly match against the Canadian men\u2019s national soccer team on June 6 in Montreal ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Photo courtesy of Vermont Green FC<\/p>\n
Vermont Green FC, a semi-professional soccer club based in Burlington, played the Canadian men\u2019s national team in a pre-FIFA World Cup scrimmage Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The game, held in Montreal, served as one of Canada\u2019s final training sessions before competing in this year\u2019s World Cup, which starts Thursday. Canada\u2019s first game of the tournament is set for Friday against Bosnia-Herzegovina.<\/p>\n
The tournament, which takes place every four years, is being played this year across 16 cities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The final is scheduled for July 19.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not uncommon ahead of the World Cup for national soccer teams to play local clubs as warm-ups for the big stage. These matches, known as \u201cfriendlies,\u201d give teams a chance to practice key plays and finalize their tactics in a low-stakes setting.<\/p>\n
But for Vermont Green, which is made up largely of college-level players and was founded just five years ago, the match was \u201can enormous opportunity,\u201d said Adam Pfeifer, the team\u2019s sporting director, in a press release announcing the game<\/a>.<\/p>\n The match was closed to the public and the team declined to share the result.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was surreal,\u201d said David Ajagbe, a forward for Vermont Green who plays for the University of Portland during the school year. Ajagbe, a junior, is from Vancouver \u2014 a fact he said made the weekend\u2019s game take on another level of significance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do whatever I can to help my country be ready for the World Cup,\u201d he said in an interview Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s like a once in a lifetime opportunity \u2014 and it was just a great, great experience.\u201d<\/p>\n Ajagbe said he knew some of the Canadian team\u2019s players personally, including one of its stars: Alphonso Davies, who plays for perennial German league champions FC Bayern Munich. Ajagbe trains with Davies in the winter, he said.<\/p>\n Vermont Green, meanwhile, has a host of other connections to Canada. For the past two seasons, the team has fielded six Canadian players. Several of them, including Ajagbe, played in the national championship game the team won in 2025<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n That league, USL League 2, takes place over the summer and is one of the main competitions for collegiate players to showcase their skills for professional scouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vermont also plays an annual match, outside the confines of its league, against semi-professional teams from Quebec that it calls the \u201cMaple Cup.\u201d In the cup\u2019s three iterations so far \u2014 two featuring its men\u2019s team, and one with its women\u2019s squad \u2014 the Green have won every time.\u00a0<\/p>\n