Soccer in Canada | Canada Hosting the 2026 World Cup

[MolsonExport]

Woot Woot!

[Nite]

Originally Posted by drew

The game and crowd was amazing to watch.

Is there a story or tradition behind the end of game drum "ceremony" that the team did at centre field with the crowd? It was amazing to watch.

It's a TFC tradition after games for about 10 years now, and since so many national teams games are at Toronto i guess it has become a National team tradition as well.

[yveseluj]

Originally Posted by megadude

https://mlsmultiplex.com/2015/07/16/...2000-gold-cup/

What's wild about this Gold Cup winning squad is just how white they are compared to our current team.

[megadude]

Originally Posted by yveseluj

What's wild about this Gold Cup winning squad is just how white they are compared to our current team.

Yeah. I played in North York and Brampton, starting around 1986. Vast majority of my teammates were white right up until I stopped organized soccer circa 1999, when I finished highschool.

I moved to Brampton in 1988. I'm not sure when Brampton was no longer majority white, but you had NT members like Ian Hume and Paul Stalteri from Brampton who were reflective of the city at the time.

I can't pinpoint when the immigrant population really took off in the GTA and other places where our current players come from, but these guys are the product of that. But I'm sure there's a cyclical degree to it and the composition will revert back and forth over time, but surely won't look like 1986 or 2000.

The pic above I posted of England shows one black guy and two half black guys. Their current starting XI has probably on average of four to five. France of course has been white minority for about two decades now. Netherlands is probably five or six minority? Belgium is close to that ratio as well, but that's more recent. A similar trajectory to Canada I suppose.

[samne]

Brampton seems to produce a disproportionate amount of soccer and basketball players.

[elly63]

• Video Link • Video Link

[Hawrylyshyn]

Originally Posted by yveseluj

What's wild about this Gold Cup winning squad is just how white they are compared to our current team.

I think a lot of this also comes from the fact that Canadian soccer was historically controlled by white British men and if you weren't a "Smith", "Jones", or "Mc---" you weren't welcome

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn

I think a lot of this also comes from the fact that Canadian soccer was historically controlled by white British men and if you weren't a "Smith", "Jones", or "Mc---" you weren't welcome

Back in the 1980s when I went for tryouts for the CANUSA games in Hamilton, and then moved to Hamilton to play in high school, many of the other players were black and brown and olive-skinned. The sport was dominated by kids who had vowels at the end of their names.

And there were black kids with names like Smith and Jones playing, too.

[rousseau]

Great to see the Canadian national team in the World Cup. It's kind of a weird one, though. I'm used to compartmentalizing my life: a safe existence in the bland country of Canada, with culture, food, entertainment and sports coming from the rest of the world. So with Canada never being an option, the greatest sporting event in the universe has always had me cheering for England and the Netherlands, in addition to just generally enjoying it for the sheer epic scale of the spectacle.

I'll be pulling for Canada if they come up against England or the Netherlands, don't get me wrong. But I'll never listen to a non-Brit doing the play-by-play. That's non-negotiable. The Canadian voices I heard in the Youtube highlights were excruciatingly awful.

Football commentary must always be British.

[JHikka]

Wileman and Caldwell will be doing the call for the World Cup on TSN, supposedly. I plan to either be at watch parties or at bars watching matches so don't think the commentary will matter all that much.

To add to that thought, I have a feeling there'll be some very large watch parties in November. Normally for a World Cup these could be outdoors and gather large crowds, but November in Canada will be tricky for that this time around. I seem to recall a large events centre in downtown Toronto that might be able to hold two or three big watch parties...and it happens to have a brand new video screen.

To save us from potential riots in Toronto, Italy has done us the service of not qualifying for Qatar. Perhaps Portugal will do the same this week.

[Proof Sheet]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Wileman and Caldwell will be doing the call for the World Cup on TSN, supposedly. I plan to either be at watch parties or at bars watching matches so don't think the commentary will matter all that much.

To add to that thought, I have a feeling there'll be some very large watch parties in November. Normally for a World Cup these could be outdoors and gather large crowds, but November in Canada will be tricky for that this time around. I seem to recall a large events centre in downtown Toronto that might be able to hold two or three big watch parties...and it happens to have a brand new video screen.

To save us from potential riots in Toronto, Italy has done us the service of not qualifying for Qatar. Perhaps Portugal will do the same this week.

Whew....Wileman and Caldwell is a relief that we are spared Terry Dunfield. Hopefully England (Wileman) won't play Scotland (Caldwell) or Canada playing either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaSocce...tators_be_any/

Looks like I'm not the only who finds Dunfield hard to listen to. It seems to be the consensus of my footie buddies.

A bit of a shock that Sportsnet had the qualifiers and then TSN does the World Cup.

I would think for the non canada games we will get the world feed commentary.

If only it had been in the summer. Great outdoor viewing parties.

Any predictions for a winner. I think the schedule will be out in a few days and that should give us better ideas.

The only big upset left is if Portugal don't make it.

[megadude]

How long before Herdman gets a club job back home? Can totally see Championship sides wanting to hire him. Really a Premier League team should give him a try but 99% of the time they go for the safe hire. Though safe is relative because you get former players who have name recognition that coached a reserve or lower division team for like 1-2 years suddenly hoisted up into the big job. And Lord knows how many big name coaches with good track records have also failed spectacularly on occasion.

Herdman is short in stature but oozes charisma like Klopp. He gets guys, and gals, to buy in. He'd be a better option than some hires from big EPL teams in the past but it would probably be beneficial for him to go to a decent Championship team and learn the ropes more at club football and hopefully do well and take it from there.

Of course, I'm sure there's other national teams watching too. I want him to win a Gold Cup first though!

How likely will it be for him to be HC at home in four years? CSA will have to shell out some dough unless he has some big buyout clause in his contract.

[WhipperSnapper]

The wind chill was freezing yesterday. Today is even worse. I don't think anyone felt it at BMO.

Some of you most likely have more insight but, I have no clue just how good this team is. It could place in the bottom half of its group in Qatar or cruise to the quarter finals. It will be lots of fun

[megadude]

Originally Posted by samne

Brampton seems to produce a disproportionate amount of soccer and basketball players.

Yeah. Produces a lot more than neighbourhing Mississauga, which has more than 200k more people. Think a big part of it is Brampton's blue collar nature and Mississauga having more well off people who either don't put their kids into sports or if they do, put them in more expensive sports like hockey.

[WhipperSnapper]

It usually starts with one person with passion, experience and, charisma that just happens to live in the area.

[svlt]

Originally Posted by Proof Sheet

Whew....Wileman and Caldwell is a relief that we are spared Terry Dunfield. Hopefully England (Wileman) won't play Scotland (Caldwell) or Canada playing either.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CanadaSocce...tators_be_any/

Looks like I'm not the only who finds Dunfield hard to listen to. It seems to be the consensus of my footie buddies.

A bit of a shock that Sportsnet had the qualifiers and then TSN does the World Cup.

I would think for the non canada games we will get the world feed commentary.

If only it had been in the summer. Great outdoor viewing parties.

Any predictions for a winner. I think the schedule will be out in a few days and that should give us better ideas.

The only big upset left is if Portugal don't make it.

Besides that game, to a much less significant degree the biggest consequential upset remaining might be Solomon Islands beating New Zealand or Costa Rica pipping the USA or Mexico for a top 3 spot through some weird permutation of results.

[Denscity]

Originally Posted by drew

The game and crowd was amazing to watch.

Is there a story or tradition behind the end of game drum "ceremony" that the team did at centre field with the crowd? It was amazing to watch.

It's from Iceland I think. Check out their recent world cup footage.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Back in the 1980s when I went for tryouts for the CANUSA games in Hamilton, and then moved to Hamilton to play in high school, many of the other players were black and brown and olive-skinned. The sport was dominated by kids who had vowels at the end of their names.

And there were black kids with names like Smith and Jones playing, too.

Yes, the OP was bull. Soccer was then and to a large extent still is the "immigrant" sport especially as it get to levels beyond the "daycare" stage.

[elly63]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Perhaps Portugal will do the same this week.

"Even if we didn't qualify, I made the best decision in my life to come play for Canada"

Stephen Eustáquio

[elly63]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Some of you most likely have more insight but, I have no clue just how good this team is. It could place in the bottom half of its group in Qatar or cruise to the quarter finals.

I used to wonder that and now find myself thinking it less and less. For me the first test was against Mexico in the Gold Cup, we were missing many of our starters and most of our strikers, we had to bring in Tesho Akindele. There was no Borjan, Davies, David, Larin, Cavallini, Akinola, Vitoria; a real recipe for disaster. We gave them all they could handle in front of 50k screaming Mexicans in Houston and only lost in the 90+ minute.

Herc Gomez of ESPN FC (a usually fair assessor of Canadian soccer) did a video titled "Canada loses its ‘FEAR FACTOR’ without Alphonso Davies" It should be known that Phonsie has played in less that 50% of the games in the Octagonal due to injury/illness.

I am buoyed by the fact we seem to get lots of scoring chances but against better competition (quicker to close and shut down) we have to do much better than the last two games.

We have good depth (especially in goal) and don't suffer much at substitution time. Really heartening to see Kone get a shot in MF as I think we are vulnerable there in the short term.

We have had a lot of good fortune in the Octagonal but maybe that is making up for the 30 some past years