Canada's First Time: Things Nobody Thought Would Happen Here

Canada is finally hosting the Men's World Cup on home soil. Not the Women's World Cup—Canada's women's team is strong, and they hosted the 2015 edition, but that's a different story. For Canada, the Men's World Cup has always been something that happens somewhere else, hosted by other countries, watched on TV. Until 2026.

Toronto's BMO Field and Vancouver's BC Place will jointly host 13 group-stage matches. Yes, you read that right—all group-stage games, no knockout rounds. Canada's World Cup journey, from a competitive standpoint, will only last until the group stage ends. But for Canadian soccer, these 13 matches aren't the finish line. They're the starting point.

In 2022, Canada made it back to the World Cup after a 36-year drought. Though they lost all three group-stage matches, Alphonso Davies scored Canada's first-ever goal in World Cup history against Croatia. That goal—he leaped and headed it in—that one second his body hung in the air rewrote the entire history of Canadian soccer. In 2026, Davies and Canada will play a World Cup at home. They're no longer that team showing up for the first time to "gain experience." They're the hosts. They have the right to say: "This is our party."

I ran into a group of kids in Vancouver wearing Canadian jerseys. They were about ten or eleven years old. I asked them what they were most looking forward to. One kid said: "I want to see Davies score a goal right in our backyard." Another said: "I want to see the whole world come to our home." The third kid didn't say anything—he just held up the Canadian flag in his hand. The wind caught it, and it fluttered in the sunlight. He didn't need to say a word.