Canada's Alphonso Davies, centre, and Panama's Kahiser Lenis battle for the ball during international soccer action in Toronto, on Oct. 15.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
The road to 2026 will be a long and winding one, and nights like Tuesday at BMO Field will, to the angst of the 23,315 fans that showed up on a cold, windy October evening, likely be more the norm than the exception.
Canada eeked out a 2-1 win against Panama – one place ahead of it in the FIFA world rankings – but it proved to be tough sledding for most of the game, with Jonathan David providing the late winner to spare Canada’s blushes.
Canada’s World Cup, which will open on this pitch in less than two years time, will bring more exacting opponents than Panama, but head coach Jesse Marsch certainly has kinks to work out, as his team put forth one its less coherent efforts in some time.
But the World Cup is still 20 months off. Tuesday evening was more about celebrating the recent past with an eye to next month’s Nations League quarter-final, with Canada hosting the second leg against a still to-be-determined opponent on November 19. As you might expect, the recent fourth-place showing at last summer’s Copa America is still very much front of mind, with nine of the 11 that started the semi-final against Argentina lining up for the team photo here.
After playing the first 10 games of his Canadian national team tenure in Europe and the United States, Marsch finally got to feel the love from the home crowd as the men’s team played a game on Canadian soil for the first time since last November.
Loyal Canadian servants Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David and Richie Laryea were all feted for passing the 50-appearance mark for their country before the kickoff, but for much of the first half smiles were in short supply as Panama made the Canadians earn everything the hard way.
But Moise Bombito, whose breakout performance over the summer paved his move to France’s Ligue 1 with OGC Nice, felt his team was more than up to the challenge.
“I think during Copa America, the whole backline played against really physical strikers,” he said. “So for us to be able to be in that environment for at least a month, a month and a half, and us to be able to play against another physical team like Panama, just it was just another day in the office for us.”
As might be expected for an all-CONCACAF friendly, the game was tetchy from the off, with consistent fouling the order of the day, particularly from the visitors. Panama, which had suffered a 2-0 road loss against the United States last weekend – in Mauricio Pochettino’s first game in charge of the Americans – were clearly in no mood to go home with a double dose of defeat.
One of the signature tenets of this Canadian squad under head coach Jesse Marsch is to match fire with fire, and many of the players – Laryea and Stephen Eustaquio in particular – are no strangers to soccer’s dark arts. It was something that stood them in good stead over the summer coming up against some of South America’s finest exponents of soccer simulation, and their patience was tested equally as much here.
“We knew that Panama would do this, like they’re a physically dominant present team, but we are too, and we wanted to make sure that, as much as when the pitch isn’t perfect, then the game becomes a little bit tougher in terms of now, what the tackles look like, what the duels look like, what the aerial duels look like,” Marsch said afterwards.
“… So I’ve been challenging them through all of the different matches and all the different experiences to know that that side of the game becomes incredibly important.”
While Panama may have won the first half in the foul count – nine to five – when it comes to the only score that truly matters, Canada found itself on top.
It didn’t come easy, however. Canada’s strikers took some take to calibrate their sights on goal, with both David and Cyle Larin drawing multiple saves from Panama goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera.
The pressure eventually told with one minute remaining in the half, as the Panamanian back four succumbed to Canada’s high press and coughed up the ball on the edge of their own penalty area. The ball fell invitingly to Vancouver Whitecaps winger Ali Ahmed – earning just his 10th cap - who calmly rolled the ball into the path of Larin, and the Real Mallorca striker had the simplest of task to side-foot the ball past Mosquera.
Larin’s strike made him the first Canadian man into the national team’s 30-goal club and placed him – for half-an-hour or so – ahead of international teammate David, who had 29 international tallies to his name.
“I think it’s a friendly competition,” said David after pulling even with Larin with his second-half goal. “There’s no bad blood. If there’s a pass to make to each other, we’ll make it ultimately, we would just want the team to win.”
The David-Larin strike partnership is very much a known quantity though, and though it sputtered at times during the Copa America – goal scoring remains one of the team’s Achilles heels – Marsch likely learned nothing new from watching the duo on Tuesday night.
Marsch shuffled his deck in the 67th minute, bringing in Jonathan Osorio and Liam Miller, but the changes had anything but the desired effect. Just one minute later, Panamanian substitute Christian Martinez took advantage of a momentary lapse from Davies and centre back Derek Cornelius, sliding a ball through to Jose Fajardo, who clipped it over an advancing Maxime Crepeau to knot the score at 1-1.
Canada, which warmed up for this match with a match against CF Montreal selects when another international opponent could not be found, looked well off the form it had shown last month in beating the U.S. on American soil, as well as earning a draw with Mexico.
Marsch continued to shuffle, introducing Theo Bair for Larin with a little over 10 minutes to go, and the Auxerre forward almost won it late on with a looping header than forced a full-stretch save from Mosquera.
But the fans didn’t have to wait much longer, and David got brought BMO Field to its feet with three minutes left in regulation, redirecting a cross from Liam Miller into the corner far beyond the despairing dive of Mosquera.