{"id":366697,"date":"2026-06-19T04:06:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/366697\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T04:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:06:12","slug":"why-this-world-cup-could-ignite-a-soccer-revolution-in-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/366697\/","title":{"rendered":"Why this World Cup could ignite a soccer revolution in Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

VANCOUVER, Canada\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When the first men\u2019s World Cup<\/a> game played in Canada kicked off last week, Anthony Totera sat in the stands and wept.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a dream come true,\u201d said Totera, who has spent most of his 57 years on earth promoting Canadian soccer. \u201cI can\u2019t describe the emotions. It was something surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the 1994 World Cup<\/a>, the first held in the U.S., forever altered the direction of American soccer, this summer\u2019s tournament, which Canada is sharing with the U.S. and Mexico, has the potential to do the same for that country.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be something monumental,\u201d Totera said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to get to another level, another point, where we\u2019re going to say this was when it all turned.\u201d<\/p>\n

With an opening draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina last week in Toronto and Thursday\u2019s 6-0 blowout victory<\/a> over Qatar in Vancouver, this tournament is already the most successful on the field for Canada, which had lost all six previous World Cup games it had played. Now it\u2019s poised to advance to the knockout rounds for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

Jonathan David\u2019s three goals were more than Canada had scored in its previous World Cup seven games combined. And former LAFC goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau, who lost his chance to play in the last World Cup when he broke his leg in the MLS Cup final, had no trouble making them stand up, recording Canada\u2019s first-ever World Cup clean sheet.<\/p>\n

The hosts outshoot Qatar 32-2 and had 97 touches in the box in one of the most dominant performances in recent World Cup history.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think that we\u2019re a soccer country,\u201d LAFC midfielder Stephen Eustaquio said. \u201cIt\u2019s a very special group.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the win was a costly one since Canada, which entered the tournament missing three starters to injury, lost another early in the second half when midfielder Ismael Kone was carted off on a stretcher with an apparent broken leg after Qatar\u2019s Assim Madibo clipped him from behind.<\/p>\n

And while that success on the field \u2014 costly or not \u2014 is significant, Steve Reed, the former Canadian Soccer Assn. president who was instrumental in bringing the World Cup to Canada, said the real goal wasn\u2019t to win games as much as it was to win over the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach time we have hosted major tournaments, we have seen a significant increase in participation and general public interest,\u201d said Reed, who was part of the group that organized the 2015 women\u2019s World Cup in Canada. That tournament produced nearly a half-billion dollars in economic activity, double the original projections. It also boosted investment of soccer infrastructure, including the construction or upgrading of 21 \u201cFIFA-quality\u201d pitches, and surged youth participation numbers. The quarterfinal game between the host country and England drew a record TV audience of 20.8 million Canadians.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that we have proved that we excel at hosting major events. This will just be reinforced in 2026,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of expectations,\u201d he continued, \u201cone would be the continued growth of the game, particularly on the men\u2019s side. We have always been great at the grassroots level. But we need to be better at the top end of the game, creating more professional opportunities for players in our domestic leagues and creating a pipeline to bigger clubs in major leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Canada <\/p>\n

Canada fans celebrate after a 6-0 win over Qatar at the World Cup on Thursday.<\/p>\n

(Kaleb Tatum \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly the kind of legacy the 1994 World Cup created in the U.S., where it gave birth to Major League Soccer, a deep lower-tier professional infrastructure and an academy system that has sent players to major teams all over the world. Canada has also benefited from that, with MLS placing teams in Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto. Nine players from the league \u2014 including three from LAFC \u2014 are on Canada\u2019s World Cup team.<\/p>\n

In the last decade, Canada has begun building its own youth development system. It also launched the Canadian Premier League, an eight-team professional league that has already sent 15 players to the national team. Those initiatives had a good foundation to build on since soccer is Canada\u2019s most popular sport in terms of registration and participation and ranks behind only hockey as a spectator sport.<\/p>\n

Still, when Victor Montagliani, a former Canadian Soccer Assn. president, first publicly floated the idea of bidding to host the men\u2019s World Cup in 2013, he was lampooned.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople absolutely laughed at him, all across this country,\u201d said Totera, who is now the grassroots ambassador for the Premier League. \u201cBut his closest friends and people that knew him knew he didn\u2019t lie when he said, \u2018I want to bring the World Cup to Canada.\u2019 And he brought it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada had to pair with the U.S. and Mexico to make that happen, with the so-called United Bid beating back a proposal from Morocco thanks in part to some steady diplomacy from Reed, who took over as president when Montagliani was chosen to lead CONCACAF, the governing body that oversees soccer in North America, Central America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s reward was 13 World Cup games \u2014 seven in Vancouver and six in Toronto. Mexico gets the same number, while 78 of the record 104 matches will be played in the U.S.<\/p>\n

That same year, 2018, Reed and Canada Soccer put the final piece of its World Cup preparations in place when it hired John Herdman to rebuild its men\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

In seven years with the country\u2019s women, Herdman had taken a team that finished last in the 2011 World Cup to the quarterfinals of the next tournament, sandwiched between two bronze-medal performances in the Olympic Games. His impact on the men\u2019s team was equally as stunning.<\/p>\n

When Herdman took over, it had been 32 years since Canada played in its only World Cup. The country not only returned in its first cycle under the new coach, but it won the CONCACAF qualifying tournament to earn its place in the 2022 tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a Canadian football supporter, the roller-coaster ride has been downward for most of the years,\u201d said Totera, who pulled on his first Canada soccer shirt the year he entered first grade. \u201cBut for the last few years, it\u2019s been on on the upswing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Herdman found success in part by making the recruitment of dual nationals a priority, starting four of them \u2014 including Alphonso Davies, who immigrated to Canada from a refugee camp in Ghana \u2014 in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Nearly a quarter of Canada\u2019s population was born somewhere else and Herdman leaned into that diversity. <\/p>\n

Jesse Marsch, the U.S.-born coach who took over the national team in 2024, followed Herdman\u2019s lead, recruiting six dual nationals to his World Cup team. As a result the 26 players on Canada\u2019s roster, or their parents, come from more than 17 countries \u2014 from Iran, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados to Haiti, Lebanon, Nigeria and the Philippines.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a melting pot. We embrace it,\u201d said Totera, whose family moved to Canada from Italy. \u201cI look at that team, our team, and they\u2019re from all parts of the world. Not one from one section of the world or the other section. No, all over.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, with a win and draw in two games, that diverse Canadian team is almost certain to advance out of a World Cup group stage for the first time \u2014 just as the U.S. did when it first hosted a men\u2019s World Cup in 1994.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter \u201894, after the World Cup was there, they took off to bigger and better things,\u201d Totera said. \u201cI believe once we get into the knockout route, we won\u2019t look back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on the cusp of something really special in this country right now. And we need to grab it and run with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VANCOUVER, Canada\u00a0\u2014\u00a0When the first men\u2019s World Cup game played in Canada kicked off last week, Anthony Totera sat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[148752,12672,7363,88834,423,148751,48,52,51,47,50,49,148750,9442,47073,148753,12967,2281,31561,5393,72],"class_list":["post-366697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-anthony-totera","tag-canada","tag-country","tag-first-man","tag-game","tag-john-herdman","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-major-team","tag-player","tag-qatar","tag-steve-reed","tag-tournament","tag-u-s","tag-vancouver","tag-world-cup","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}