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<\/p>\nCanada\u2019s breakout World Cup performance came to an end Saturday when Les Rouges fell 3-0 to Morocco in the round of 16. <\/p>\n
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The result punctuated a run where the nation earned its first point and first win in the men\u2019s tournament, captured its first spot in the knockout round, then posted its first knockout-round victory. <\/p>\n
The tournament was \u201csuccessful on a variety of fronts,\u201d Blue said, but there\u2019s still ample work to be done in growing the sport across the country. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe World Cup in 2026 was always positioned to be a catalyst, not a finish line,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the legacy of this World Cup will come in many different forms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Plans continue for the creation of a national training centre, Blue said, and work needs to be done on strengthening youth teams and building pathways for talented young athletes across the country to reach the men\u2019s and women\u2019s national teams.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a need, too, he said, to reach out to new fans of the game and show them that the sport exists well beyond the World Cup. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are professional soccer clubs in many communities across Canada, and we hope that the World Cup will inspire people to go buy tickets and attend games and consume them on TV,\u201d Blue said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe will have friendlies in the next few windows, both on the women\u2019s and men\u2019s teams, that are domestically played, and we are hopeful that those venues will be full of fans who enjoyed the men\u2019s World Cup this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadians weathered adversity throughout their World Cup journey, including in a 6-0 victory over Qatar when midfielder Isma\u00ebl Kon\u00e9 broke his leg in two places thanks to a tackle from behind. <\/p>\n
Injuries were a dominant story for the national team long before the national squad was named. <\/p>\n
Captain Alphonso Davies saw his role limited by a hamstring injury he picked up in early May while playing for Bayern Munich in a Champions League semifinal.<\/p>\n
The 25-year-old left back did not join training camp in Charlotte, N.C., late that month, but was still named to the 26-man roster by head coach Jesse Marsch. He joined his teammates in Edmonton ahead of the World Cup, bringing along a personal trainer from Germany, and worked his way through return-to-play protocols over much of the next several weeks. <\/p>\n
Davies missed all three of Canada\u2019s group-stage games before coming on in the 74th minute of the nation\u2019s 1-0 victory over South Africa in round-of-32 play. He then opted to sit out the round-of-16 matchup with Morocco after feeling something in training. <\/p>\n
The star athlete\u2019s presence was still important to the Canadian squad, Blue said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen taking into consideration Alphonso\u2019s contributions that are multi-faceted with our program \u2014 whether this be off-field leadership or leadership in training, or the impact that he had on the game that he did play \u2026 and the prognosis that was articulated when we were starting the camp \u2014 the decision to bring Alphonso was an absolute obvious one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that he wasn\u2019t able to play in the Morocco game, but \u2026 I\u2019m sure if you asked Jesse, he would say that he would do the same thing again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Canada earned USD$18.5 million for its success at the World Cup, but Blue cautioned that Canada Soccer won\u2019t be using all of that prize money to help grow the sport. <\/p>\n
FIFA gave each of the 48 countries participating in the tournament $2.5 million for preparations and another $10 million for participating in the group stage. <\/p>\n
Of that $10 million, a portion goes to Canada\u2019s athletes as compensation and to help cover the costs of bringing loved ones to games, Blue said. Another chunk will go toward Canada Soccer\u2019s budget. <\/p>\n
Canada received an additional $2 million for advancing to the round of 32 and $4 million for getting to the round of 16. <\/p>\n
A collective bargaining agreement ratified earlier this year requires half of that money to go into a prize pool that will be split with the women\u2019s program if they qualify for the 2027 World Cup. If they don\u2019t, the money goes back to Canada Soccer to be reinvested in grassroots soccer and youth national teams. <\/p>\n
The other half of the money is used by Canada Soccer for increased expenses that come with advancing in the World Cup, including bonuses earned by the coaching staff. <\/p>\n
The total pot isn\u2019t a \u201cwindfall,\u201d Blue said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s positive for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cBut as a business strategy, advancing in the World Cup is not necessarily the primary lever that we\u2019re trying to pull for revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 6, 2026.<\/p>\n
Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s breakout World Cup performance came to an end Saturday when Les Rouges fell 3-0 to Morocco in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784713,"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-784712","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\/784712","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=784712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}