![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nCalen and Kelly Chellew came from Baton Rouge, La., for the game.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
Calen, who was born in Canada, bought the tickets before the matchups had been set, but was elated to find out his team would be playing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fate,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n
Shaun Stewart from Winnipeg made the journey south to see the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time ever that they\u2019ve gotten this far. The last time with the World Cup was the first time they even scored a goal, so the fact that they\u2019re in the top 16 of the world is pretty cool,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Canada recorded its first-ever knockout stage win at a men\u2019s World Cup with its dramatic 1-0 win over South Africa in Los Angeles last week. <\/p>\n
Today\u2019s pre-game celebrations and watch parties are taking place in cities from the east to the west. <\/p>\n
Canadian soccer supporters group The Voyageurs has posted a list of watch parties across the country to their Instagram. The supporters will also be marching to the stadium ahead of the game in Houston. <\/p>\n
Some fans have expressed annoyance online that the game won\u2019t be played in one of two Canadian World Cup stadiums. <\/p>\n
Toronto hosted its last World Cup match on Thursday, and Vancouver is set to wrap up its stint next Tuesday. Fans in both cities can still attend the FIFA Fan Festival, which will continue to broadcast games until the end of the World Cup. <\/p>\n
The winner of today\u2019s game will meet either Paraguay or France in a quarterfinal matchup in Boston on July 9.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2026.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calen and Kelly Chellew came from Baton Rouge, La., for the game. Calen, who was born in Canada,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,561,82],"class_list":["post-780246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780246","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=780246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}