VANCOUVER, Canada — When the first men’s World Cup game played in Canada kicked off last week, Anthony Totera sat in the stands and wept.
“It was a dream come true,” said Totera, who has spent most of his 57 years on earth promoting Canadian soccer. “I can’t describe the emotions. It was something surreal.”
If the 1994 World Cup, the first held in the U.S., forever altered the direction of American soccer, this summer’s tournament, which Canada is sharing with the U.S. and Mexico, has the potential to do the same for that country.
“This is going to be something monumental,” Totera said. “We’re going to get to another level, another point, where we’re going to say this was when it all turned.”
With an opening draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina last week in Toronto and Thursday’s 6-0 blowout victory 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’s poised to advance to the knockout rounds for the first time ever.
Jonathan David’s 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’s first-ever World Cup clean sheet.
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.
“I really think that we’re a soccer country,” LAFC midfielder Stephen Eustaquio said. “It’s a very special group.”
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’s Assim Madibo clipped him from behind.
And while that success on the field — costly or not — 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’t to win games as much as it was to win over the public.
“Each time we have hosted major tournaments, we have seen a significant increase in participation and general public interest,” said Reed, who was part of the group that organized the 2015 women’s 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 “FIFA-quality” 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.
“I would say that we have proved that we excel at hosting major events. This will just be reinforced in 2026,” Reed said.
“In terms of expectations,” he continued, “one would be the continued growth of the game, particularly on the men’s 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.”
Canada fans celebrate after a 6-0 win over Qatar at the World Cup on Thursday.
(Kaleb Tatum / Associated Press)
That’s 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 — including three from LAFC — are on Canada’s World Cup team.
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’s most popular sport in terms of registration and participation and ranks behind only hockey as a spectator sport.
Still, when Victor Montagliani, a former Canadian Soccer Assn. president, first publicly floated the idea of bidding to host the men’s World Cup in 2013, he was lampooned.
“People absolutely laughed at him, all across this country,” said Totera, who is now the grassroots ambassador for the Premier League. “But his closest friends and people that knew him knew he didn’t lie when he said, ‘I want to bring the World Cup to Canada.’ And he brought it.”
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.
Canada’s reward was 13 World Cup games — 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.
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’s team.
In seven years with the country’s 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’s team was equally as stunning.
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.
“Being a Canadian football supporter, the roller-coaster ride has been downward for most of the years,” said Totera, who pulled on his first Canada soccer shirt the year he entered first grade. “But for the last few years, it’s been on on the upswing.”
Herdman found success in part by making the recruitment of dual nationals a priority, starting four of them — including Alphonso Davies, who immigrated to Canada from a refugee camp in Ghana — in Qatar.
Nearly a quarter of Canada’s population was born somewhere else and Herdman leaned into that diversity.
Jesse Marsch, the U.S.-born coach who took over the national team in 2024, followed Herdman’s lead, recruiting six dual nationals to his World Cup team. As a result the 26 players on Canada’s roster, or their parents, come from more than 17 countries — from Iran, Croatia, Jamaica and Barbados to Haiti, Lebanon, Nigeria and the Philippines.
“We’re a melting pot. We embrace it,” said Totera, whose family moved to Canada from Italy. “I look at that team, our team, and they’re from all parts of the world. Not one from one section of the world or the other section. No, all over.
“Amazing.”
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 — just as the U.S. did when it first hosted a men’s World Cup in 1994.
“After ‘94, after the World Cup was there, they took off to bigger and better things,” Totera said. “I believe once we get into the knockout route, we won’t look back.
“We’re on the cusp of something really special in this country right now. And we need to grab it and run with it.”