Oh Canada!

It’s not every day that the world gets to witness the birth of a serious football nation, with no real prior pedigree in the sport, real-time and on the grandest stage of them all, at the World Cup. Canada made exactly that rarity happen in the first knock-out game of the 2026 edition that they are co-hosting, by defeating South Africa with a second-half stoppage-time goal in Los Angeles, USA. Even though the winner was conceived and slotted in all by one man, Stephen Eustáquio, the Canadian midfielder who started the match as captain, coach Jesse Marsch pulled the entire squad – support staff and all – into a post-match huddle and called every last one of them a “hero”.

“For the future generation of Canadian children who play this sport, you guys are true heroes today,” Marsch, American by birth, said in his emotional mid-pitch speech caught by the broadcast cameras, a speech as impassioned as his recital of ‘O Canada’ when the national anthems pinged off the speakers before the game.

It’ll only get harder to progress from here on, given that Canada will play the winner of three-time finalists Netherlands and 2022 semifinalists Morocco in the Round of 16. But the very fact that a country known for its hockey players are now a pre-quarterfinalist in the greatest football tournament in the world – one that started with 48 teams no less – is a phenomenal achievement all by itself, especially because of their history, or lack of, at FIFA World Cups.

Only twice before had they even qualified for the quadrennial, their maiden appearance coming back in the 1986 edition where Canada played three group games and lost all three. Their next appearance was at the previous World Cup in Qatar, where once again, three lost group games saw an early exit and Canada finishing 31^st out of 32 teams.

But being (co) hosts comes with a responsibility, for only one host nation of a football World Cup had not qualified for the knock-outs, and they just happened to be Canada’s opponents on Sunday night – Bafana Bafana, back in 2010. Canada had already passed that hurdle before Sunday, having finished runners-up in Group B earlier in the tournament.

Strange as it sounds, Canada also had a hosting first at the World Cup in this knockout fixture when they became the first-ever hosts to play a World Cup game outside of their country. And for a long while, it certainly looked like two away teams had taken the field at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, with both sides playing the slow, waiting game, happy to resist any flashes of high-intensity creations and rather hold out for the counters and generally carry the ball from the back.

The minutes were long and the football wasn’t great, poised to carry on for an added 30 minutes of extra time, if not the first penalty shootout of this tournament itself. But just when the misery looked to prolong, Eustáquio put everyone out of it with the most famous strike in Canadian football. But he had created more than just a goal. Eustáquio had created history for an entire nation.