Members of the Voyageurs, the unofficial fan club of Canada Soccer, celebrate after the country’s 4-0 win over Jamaica at BMO Field in Toronto on March 27, 2022. The victory saw Canada qualify for the FIFA World Cup for the first time since 1986.Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
Even for a country that has traditionally carved out many of its sporting exploits on ice, 36 years is a long time to stay out in the cold.
But late Sunday afternoon, with light snow fittingly swirling around Toronto’s BMO Field, Canada’s lengthy stay in the men’s international soccer wilderness came to an end.
The 4-0 victory over Jamaica didn’t just wrap up the country’s second trip to the World Cup final, it went a long way to ensuring that Canada will travel to Qatar this November as the kings of CONCACAF.
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With 28 points from the first 13 games of this final eight-team qualification round, Canada is three points clear of the United States and Mexico, with one game to play, away to Panama on Wednesday. And while Canada will now be heavily focused on that game, attention will naturally be looking ahead to the World Cup draw this Friday in Qatar, when Canada will learn the identities of its three group-stage opponents.
“It’s not just going to the World Cup, it’s going there and performing and doing well,” said 39-year-old captain Atiba Hutchinson, the only player in the squad who was alive when Canada went to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. “We have to believe that we can go there and make some noise.”
After the win, Alphonso Davies, the Bayern Munich star who has missed the past five Canada games with myocarditis, appeared on the jumbotron with a message for his teammates after they clinched their spot at soccer’s biggest event.
“Our brotherhood is unmatched,” he said, before dropping a reminder that qualification is just the first step of Canada’s coming-out party. “We have an opportunity to write our own story.”
John Herdman, no stranger to the World Cup having guided women’s teams to FIFA’s grand jamboree as head coach of both New Zealand and Canadian squads, said the result put to bed any doubt that Canada is a true soccer country.
“Look, Canada can,” he said. “We’ve got Davies winning Champions League finals, we’ve got players playing all over Europe, we’ve got kids coming through the system and we’ve just qualified for a World Cup. This is a legit football country.”
Canada’s Cyle Larin, right, scores past Jamaica’s goalkeeper Andre Blake during their CONCACAF World Cup qualifying match in Toronto on March 27, 2022.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
As with any coronation, there has to be a procession, and it unfolded almost from the opening minute on Sunday. Jamaica may be undergoing its own national reckoning with the British monarchy back home, but it had no choice to bend the knee here as Cyle Larin, Jonathan David and Tajon Buchanan ran riot for most of the afternoon.
Canada dominated the visitors, outshooting a Jamaica side that had already been eliminated and missing stars such as West Ham United striker Michail Antonio, among others, by 20 shots to two.
In truth, the party atmosphere had started long before the opening kickoff, with streamers, confetti and an appropriate number of empty beer cans littered around the stadium’s surrounding parking lots. It was almost impossible for Herdman’s team not to qualify here, having spurned an opportunity to punch its ticket with Thursday’s 1-0 loss in Costa Rica.
A win or a draw here and Canada was in. Even failing that, the country would have qualified with an El Salvador win or draw against Costa Rica, or a Panama win versus the United States. Canada also had the added bonus of playing in front of 29,122 fans at BMO Field, a venue where it has never lost in a competitive game, going 11-0-5 before Sunday.
The victory, Canada’s biggest of the final qualifying round, was never in doubt from the moment Larin took a neat through-ball from Stephen Eustaquio in the 13th minute to side-foot the home side into the lead. In addition to extending his national-team record to 24 international goals, the strike was the Brampton, Ont., native’s 13th goal of the qualifying tournament, leaving him one off of Ali Mabkhout of the United Arab Emirates for the most in qualifying for Qatar.
If anyone in red was looking for a sign that things were going to go Canada’s way – perhaps something from the “football gods,” as Herdman is fond of saying – it arrived shortly after the opening goal, as BMO Field was bathed in some welcome rays of sunshine. It might have come too early to necessitate ditching the parkas, gloves and balaclavas that many on both sides were wearing before and after the game, but it was a timely reminder that short sleeves and sunscreen may well be the tools of choice come November in Qatar.
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For much of the first half it seemed a question of how many Canada might score. Buchanan and David both spurned clear-cut chances, while Larin could have had a hat trick on another day. But one minute before the interval, Buchanan, who had hit the crossbar in Costa Rica, found his scoring touch, burying a shot beyond Andre Blake in the Jamaica goal following a deflected cross from David.
With World Cup qualification – if not the game – well in hand after the break, Herdman decided to admit more of his squad to the BMO Field party.
Hutchinson and Lucas Cavallini – who, along with goalkeeper Milan Borjan, were the three holdovers from the squad that infamously lost 8-1 in Honduras in 2012 – went into the game in the 63rd minute, along with Alistair Johnston. For Hutchinson, who left Canada in 2003 to embark on a club career in Europe, it was a fitting reward for the long road he has taken to reach the World Cup, adding to his own national-team record with his 94th appearance.
With the game seemingly well in hand, Herdman wasn’t done rolling out his reserves, bringing in Liam Fraser in the 70th minute to replace the indefatigable Eustaquio, who had started after going the full 90 minutes in Costa Rica despite limited minutes with his club side FC Porto. And Kamal Miller wrapped up the procession from the substitutes bench in the 76th minute, coming out to replace Jonathan Osorio.
The injection of fresh blood did little to stem the flow toward the Jamaican end though. The visitors, who had never won in eight previous games on Canadian soil, had just one shot on target all game.
Junior Hoilett tacked on a third goal in the 82nd minute, guiding a right-footed shot into the far corner, while Jamaica’s humiliation was complete with two minutes to play, Adrian Mariappa redirecting a cross from the indefatigable Samuel Adekugbe past Blake for an own goal.
For a team that started out the qualification cycle as the 73rd best team in the world, the rise to 33rd on the globe has been nothing short of astronomical. It will now be hoped that this team can continue to escape the ghosts of Canada teams past, not least at the World Cup finals, where Canada was outscored 5-0 in losing all three of its games against France, Hungary and the Soviet Union in 1986.