Canadian medical lead Greg Bay, right, accompanies injured midfielder Ismaël Koné off the field at the World Cup in Vancouver on June 18.Agustin Marcarian/Reuters
Ismaël Koné, on crutches, will cheer his teammates from the sidelines on Wednesday as Canada faces Switzerland to, for the first time, vault into the World Cup knockout stage. Win or draw, and the team plays again at home in Vancouver at BC Place.
Greg Bay will also be there Wednesday on the sidelines, but you probably don’t know his name.
Canadians should.
The 65-year-old leads the Canadian men’s soccer medical team. He effuses a reassuring calm. He’s been a fixture forever in the Vancouver region’s innovative and elite sports science community. Last Thursday, when linchpin midfielder Koné went down during the country’s first World Cup win against Qatar and everyone on the sidelines heard his fibula and tibia snap, Bay and his team were ready.
Bay, top, and his team sweep into action to treat Koné during the match against Qatar.Abbie Parr/The Associated Press
They had planned for this in detail. Concussions, spinal injuries, cardiac incidents, broken bones: Bay and his colleagues had built detailed emergency action plans and rehearsed variations of bad situations, several times a year. In March, medical teams from the 48 countries at the World Cup gathered in Atlanta to trade notes.
Last Thursday, the immediate intervention took six minutes, from the moment after a reckless Qatari tackle on Koné to getting him off the field and on the way to Vancouver General Hospital in an ambulance stationed under the stands.
A few days later, in a quiet corner of the team hotel near Stanley Park, Bay likened the feeling to how time slows down for the best players during key moments of crucial games. Like in the classic baseball movie The Natural. The everyday physics of the universe morph into something else. All the noise fades away. All the hours of practice led to this.
Moments before Koné’s injury, more than 52,000 fans had been going bonkers as Canada routed Qatar. They quieted. On the pitch, the shock of the incident sparked anger among some Canadian players, who tussled with the Qataris.
Qatar midfielder Mohamed Manai, right, reacts to the sight of Koné's serious leg injury.Kaleb Tatum/The Associated Press
Incensed teammate Richie Laryea confronts Qatar's Assim Madibo after his dangerous foul injured Koné.Lee Smith/Reuters
Bay calmed the scene. There’s always, no matter how much you plan, “a certain degree of chaos,” he told The Globe and Mail. The players and the medical team encircled Koné. The medical staff worked methodically. Bay recalled a Zen-like feeling: “You become hyperfocused on your small world.”
Each medical staffer focuses on a specific role, from stabilizing the fracture and calming the player to controlling the scene and, especially, minimizing stress. Bay helped oversee the work. Dave Simon, team physician, and physiotherapist Ryan Leaver were kneeling beside Koné. Bay walked off the pitch alongside Koné on the stretcher.
Vancouver hosts two of Canada’s three group-stage matches at this year’s World Cup, and possibly two more. A win in the round of 32 on the day after Canada Day would propel Canada into the soccer stratosphere of the round of 16 in Vancouver on July 7.
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The country’s third-largest city landed the games for several reasons. That includes a big-enough stadium for soccer’s premier stage and ideal team training grounds out at the University of British Columbia.
And it probably helped that FIFA vice-president Victor Montagliani grew up in East Vancouver.
But there’s something else: The region has long been a hub for leading-edge sports science, centred around physiotherapy. It’s a community in which Bay has been a big part since the 1980s.
These days, local names comprise an all-star list of medical professionals. Alex McKechnie in the late 1990s worked Shaquille O’Neal into top shape after his injuries, before the big man led the Los Angeles Lakers to three straight NBA titles.
It sent McKechnie to the NBA, too, and he’s now a long-time vice-president of player health and performance for the Toronto Raptors. Rick Celebrini, a McKechnie protégé, has the same role for the Golden State Warriors. The San Antonio Spurs, on recommendation from Celebrini and McKechnie, hired Vancouver’s Marilyn Adams in 2014 as the team’s director of performance therapy.
And a little farther from the bright lights of pro sports, but known to everyone in sports science, is Diane Lee, a leading physio in the area and author of several influential books.
There’s a deep-rooted culture of mentorship, Bay said, and like in the region’s apparel history – this is where Mountain Equipment Co., Arc’teryx and Lululemon started – a passion for innovation.
“We’re problem-solvers,” Bay said.
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Bay’s first role with Canada Soccer was during the 1985 FIFA U-20 World Cup in the Soviet Union. But it was in early 2022, ahead of Canada’s return to the World Cup stage, that he signed on full-time.
Broken legs in soccer are not overly rare. It happened to goalkeeper Max Crépeau ahead of the 2022 World Cup, when he broke his right tibia and fibula. Then it was Tajon Buchanan, right tibia, during Copa America in 2024, where Canada surprised everyone with a fourth-place finish. Moïse Bombito broke his left tibia last fall.
Ismaël Koné suffered a broken leg during Canada's win vs. Qatar Thursday night, ending his time at the World Cup. He was wheeled off the field while inhaling a 'green whistle' called Penthrox.
The Canadian Press
Last Thursday, among the first things to happen was controlling Koné’s pain, using the self-administered “green whistle” anesthetic. At Vancouver General Hospital, the surgeons were ready and waiting. They had watched the injury, like millions of Canadians, on television. The surgical work took 90 minutes. Bay wouldn’t say, but experts suggest the likely procedure was an insertion of an intramedullary rod with two screws at the top and two at the bottom.
By Friday evening, Koné returned to the team hotel, where he was received outside by his teammates with cheers, hugs and intricate handshakes.
His mother, Suzanne Diomandé, was there, too. In 2010, seeking a better life, she immigrated to Montreal from Ivory Coast, with a seven-year-old Koné.
Early rehabilitation began straightaway, including the basics of range of motion, contracting the muscle and gentle resistance work. In an Instagram post on Friday, Koné joked he was now a team assistant coach. He embraced the climb back to full health. “I’m ready for it,” he wrote.
Beyond the medicine, the human touch is essential. Bay radiated his usual calm in the initial swirl after the injury.
“It’s one thing to be in the medical industry and to have seen these before, but they’re pretty traumatic when it’s a teammate,” he said. “It’s not necessarily an experience that a lot of people have gone through before.”
And medicine includes camaraderie. Bay always wants an injured player to stay close with their teammates. Asked if Koné will be there at BC Place on Wednesday, Bay’s answer was simple: “Absolutely.”
Canada midfielder Nathan Saliba, who entered the Qatar match when Koné went down and promptly scored on a free kick, holds his teammate's jersey aloft at BC Place.Agustin Marcarian/Reuters