Canada the soccer nation arrives

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Josh Fullan is the founder and executive director of Maximum City.

The moment soccer became part of Canada’s national story is both specific and elusive.

It was the 78th minute of our World Cup opener in Toronto, when Cyle Larin, on the pitch for only seconds as a substitute, evened the score against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Or it was a couple of weeks later, when the team officially secured its spot in the knockout round through a drubbing of Qatar before a spirited loss to the Swiss in Vancouver. Or surely it was on June 28, when Stephen Eustáquio smashed a stoppage-time goal past the South African keeper to advance Canada to the round of 16.

“It was an amazing goal. But when I shot, I felt that everyone shot with me,” Eustáquio said in an on-field interview that was somehow both deeply personal and national in scale.

A men’s World Cup home match, a group-stage draw and win, a multi-goal game, a spot in the knockout round, a win in the knockout round, two of our largest cities filled with soccer hullabaloo – so many historic firsts in the span of a few weeks felt dizzying. Many Canadians, after all, spent the run-up to the World Cup feeling like awkward pretenders with our fragmentary knowledge of soccer.

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But long before any of these novel and thrilling moments, soccer was already growing here at community fields. And then there were investments in facilities, player development, and the arrival of three MLS teams. The women’s national team had already taught Canadians what soccer glory could feel like – most notably through their three straight podium finishes in the Olympics, culminating in a gold medal at the 2020 games in Tokyo. There were proto-events like the Pan Am Games in 2015, followed two years later by the United States, Mexico and Canada forming the United 2026 FIFA World Cup bid team (in much different political times).

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Perhaps the moment that Canada became a soccer nation did not involve a Canadian team at all. Perhaps it came when Portugal played Croatia in the round of 32, drawing two large Canadian diasporas into Toronto’s public spaces for one of the tournament’s most wrenching matches featuring two of the sport’s megawatt stars.

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But more important than the moments of success are what they all add up to. And I am not referring to the many articles and analysts sweating over calculations about the economic return of hosting a fraction of the tournament’s matches; the economic value of a cultural event is neither its ultimate measure nor its purpose.

What matters, above all, is the collective effervescence and shared emotional expansion the World Cup has created for many of us. We live in times that feel devoted to the destruction of community and the devaluation of humanity, with divisions between us carved deep into the cultural landscape. And, just in time, the World Cup released a flood of connection: small kindnesses, big rivalries, watch parties, groupchats, the repertory of chants and colours, the fusing of cultures, cheers bursting from bars and patios on weekday afternoons, my kids sharing a blanket with Colombian toddlers on the grass of the FIFA Fan Festival at Toronto’s Fort York, a fist bump from a Ghana fan with a flag-painted face as we waited on our bikes at a stoplight and talked up the Black Stars’ chances. This flood of connection fills us with the feeling that we all share something in common.

Fans across the country celebrate Canada’s monumental win against South Africa

In research I am co-leading across three World Cup host cities, children and youth aged 10–to-18 are rating the social experience of the World Cup higher than any other category. For many of them, the best part of the tournament is not simply the soccer. It is the feeling of being together.

“It’s an exciting place to get together with people you know and people from different places of the world and watch the same thing, to get excited for the same thing,” said one 14-year-old from Toronto.

When Larin scored Canada’s opening goal on June 12, I was in the stands at BMO Field. That moment among the fans was sonic and ecstatic. It needed a new word: rupturous. This time, the World Cup was not about any of the other 47 competing nations. As the stadium erupted with world-beating energy, I hesitated, then looked first to the stranger beside me and hugged him before turning back to my partner to lift her in the air.

In that instant, Canada did not become a soccer nation from nothing. It recognized the sound of one already arriving.