![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781385429_981_default.jpg\")
<\/p>\nIt was an instantly iconic image: Cyle Larin, two minutes after he first jogged onto the pitch, standing in front of a roaring Toronto Stadium crowd, in the moments after he scored one of the great goals of his life and in Canadian soccer history, with his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears.<\/p>\n
His goal \u2014 a composed 78th-minute finish from the top of Bosnia-Herzegovina\u2019s body-filled box \u2014 drew Canada\u2019s men level in their first World Cup match on home soil, and eventually earned them their first point.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday was special,\u201d Larin said after. \u201cI showed when I played, I scored.\u201d<\/p>\n
His defiant pose after was no accident. The 31-year-old receives more online abuse than perhaps any of Canada\u2019s players, a particular affront given his contributions to a program that he\u2019s led from the front since 2014. He\u2019s the second-leading goal scorer among Canadian men, behind only Jonathan David; Friday\u2019s historic marker was his 31st, a remarkable number.<\/p>\n
But in many eyes, he can look old and slow, too measured when the modern game calls for a more unbridled, frenzied attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always prove them wrong,\u201d Larin said of his detractors. \u201cI did it again. Hopefully now they can shut up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Awkwardly, Jesse Marsch, his head coach, has sometimes been one of them.<\/p>\n
WATCH | Soccer North breaks down Canada’s 1-1 draw:<\/p>\n
Breaking down Canada’s draw with Bosnia-Herzegovina in the FIFA World Cup 2026 opener<\/p>\n
Soccer North hosts Donnovan Bennett and Amy Walsh discuss Canada’s opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina at the FIFA World Cup and are joined by guest Kyle Bekker from Forge FC.<\/p>\n
Marsch believes that soccer, especially World Cup soccer, is a young man\u2019s game, best played at an extraordinary pace. His constant instruction during the opening match, expressed with every fibre of his coiled-up being, was faster, faster, faster.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he dropped Larin for Tani Oluwaseyi, the quick, rangy 26-year-old, slotted in front of the more diminutive David like a kind of maniacal space-making machine.<\/p>\n
Not long ago, Oluwaseyi\u2019s start wouldn\u2019t have been a shock. He and David had become Marsch\u2019s standard forward pairing after Larin lost his coach\u2019s esteem. Miserable club stints at Mallorca and Feyenoord made Larin seem unmotivated and spent; Oluwaseyi, in comparison, looked on the ascent.<\/p>\n
That was before Larin\u2019s fortuitous February loan to Southampton. He lit up with the Saints, scoring eight goals in 16 Championship appearances, including six in his last eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a proper grown man who came into the dressing room, and he\u2019s fit right in,\u201d Tonda Eckert, his club coach, told CBC in April. \u201cHe\u2019s only getting better and better. Excellent development for him so far, and I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll have a big impact for Canada at the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scoring is a confidence game, and Marsch couldn\u2019t ignore Larin\u2019s return to form, or Eckert\u2019s prescient prediction. Larin had lately reclaimed his starting spot from Oluwaseyi, including in pre-tournament friendlies against Uzbekistan and Ireland.<\/p>\n
PHOTOS | Canada vs. Bosnia-Herzegovina:<\/p>\n
But Marsch changed his mind against Bosnia-Herzegovina, reverting to his colder former judgments, and now, heading into Thursday\u2019s must-win game against Qatar, he\u2019s left himself with something of a dilemma.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Larin\u2019s goal, and the unsubtle message he delivered after it, almost compels Marsch to start him.<\/p>\n
The question then becomes: Who starts with him?<\/p>\n
The obvious answer is Jonathan David, arguably Canada\u2019s best player. But if form is the deciding factor, David is not nearly at the height of his.<\/p>\n
He hasn\u2019t scored in open play for his country in nearly a year. He\u2019s also famously struggled with Juventus, his Italian club side, scoring only once in his last 13 appearances, a glancing header against Bologna in April.<\/p>\n
More crucially, he also missed an early sitter against Bosnia-Herzegovina, a fluffed left-footed attempt from near the penalty spot that left Marsch incandescent, overcome with a spasm of rage.<\/p>\n
In the 61st minute and needing a goal, Marsch did something seismic: He took off Jonathan David for Promise David, Canada\u2019s emergent personality and 24-year-old man mountain. Even Oluwaseyi looked surprised to be staying on, after bottling his own great first-half chance. He wasn\u2019t replaced until Larin came on in the 76th minute and did what he did.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781385430_801_default.jpg\")
Canada’s Jonathan David attempts to get his foot on the ball in front of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Sead Kolasinac. (Canadian Press)<\/p>\n
\u201cJonny didn\u2019t have his best day,\u201d Marsch said after. \u201cBut make no mistake: He\u2019s an incredibly important player for us and we will need him to be at his best in this tournament. Without him in top form, we are not the same team we have the potential to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s all undeniably true. Marsch could start Jonathan David and Larin against Qatar and point to their historic goal-scoring heroics \u2014 they now have 70 between them \u2014 as his easy justification. He could also hope that a romp against the lightly regarded Qataris could help his all-time greats find the spark they\u2019ll need later in the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just getting back into playing more often here and playing more games with Jonny,\u201d Larin said last week. \u201cIn 2021, when we played every game together, it was goal after goal. I think it\u2019s just finding that rhythm again with him. The goals will come, and I\u2019ve always showed that.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s also true that David isn\u2019t in top form, and the World Cup does not often give players the time and space to find it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Enter Promise.<\/p>\n
The younger, taller David fed Larin for Friday\u2019s fate-turning goal, a combination that gave them joy in training the day before. He\u2019s also scored 15 goals in 37 appearances with Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgian league play this season.<\/p>\n
Of all of Canada\u2019s strikers, Promise David feels the most inevitable. At the team\u2019s May training camp, he brazenly foretold that he would score in Vancouver, although he didn\u2019t specify whether it would be against Qatar this week or Switzerland the next.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy for Cyle,\u201d David said after their shared success against Bosnia-Herzegovina. \u201cAnd for me, it just felt good to be able to come into that game and be a goal threat, put the defence back, be a problem. With me and Cyle up top, it felt like twin tower ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
It looked like it, too. David\u2019s knock is that he doesn\u2019t have the stamina that Marsch\u2019s relentless style demands, and he\u2019s only recently recovered from a ruptured hip tendon besides.<\/p>\n
But maybe it\u2019s time \u2014 maybe there are 45 good minutes \u2014 when Canada\u2019s oldest and youngest forwards can show what they might do together.<\/p>\n
Maybe they won\u2019t be denied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an instantly iconic image: Cyle Larin, two minutes after he first jogged onto the pitch, standing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-734929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734929","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=734929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}