Injury to Ismaël Koné in victory over Qatar dampens Canadian men's joy of historic 1st World Cup win

It was a biz that had its possess soundtrack, a story told through and through its unforgettable disturbance: number one an anthem, and then an ovation, and then another and another, strung together so closely, it felt as though the cheering might never end.

Then it did end, with a sickening crack, and then came a long, awful silence before the cheering, as loud as Canada’s men have ever heard, washed over them again.

They scored three goals in the first half against Qatar in front of a deafening B.C. Place crowd. In a stadium dressed nearly entirely in red, it felt like release, like relief.

They scored three more in the second for an emphatic 6-0 victory, their first at a World Cup, and almost certainly enough to carry them into the knockout rounds.

In between those sets, however — in between twin choruses of wonder and joy — there was a different noise, like a gunshot, like a cracked bat, loud enough to carry up to the roof that had been barely hanging on.

Canada earns historic first-ever World Cup win by beating Qatar 6-0

Ismaël Koné, Canada’s emergent young midfielder, had shattered his leg.

He held it up, his eyes and mouth open wide, the shock turning his face into a mask of disbelief, as though he were looking at someone else’s horror rather than his own.

Stephen Eustaquio, his fellow midfielder, was the first to see what nearly everyone had heard, and he waved frantically to the bench that had risen to fight before it came together to provide shelter instead.

“I saw his leg,” Eustaquio said after. €œI saw that something wasn’t right.”

The stadium fell almost impossibly silent. Qatar was already down to 10 men; now they were down to nine, when a clearly distraught Assim Madibo, who had tackled Koné, was dismissed to a new noise: a barrage of invective and boos.

After Koné was finally lifted away on a stretcher — after he received a long embrace from a devastated Jesse Marsch and a rousing cheer from the crowd — he was replaced by Nathan Saliba. The rest of Canada’s men wrapped him up in their arms when he walked out onto the pitch, in something like shock himself.

What 'anti-ambassador' Richie Laryea brings to Canada's World Cup lineup

Canada's Max Crépeau doing his part as goalkeepers coming up big in World Cup

The whistle blew. It was time to begin again.

Luc de Fougerolles, the 20-year-old central defender, was not ready. Tears flowed down his red cheeks. He pushed the front of his jersey into his eyes in a futile attempt to stop them.

“You never want to see anything like that,” he said. 

Max Crépeau, Canada’s goalkeeper, caught de Fougerolles in that moment. He walked up to him and held his face in his hands.

“It’s, uh… yeah,” Crépeau said after, trying and failing to keep his composure. €œEvery guy lives the emotions a certain way.”

Crépeau, whose own broken leg had forced him to miss the 2022 World Cup, was stricken in the seconds after Koné’s collapse, after he’d heard the sound that he knows a little too well. It echoed inside him.

De Fougerolles came later to it. His tears didn’t start until after he’d watched his friend leave, wheeled away from his dreams on a stretcher.

“You’re not alone,” Crépeau told de Fougerolles. €œI’m feeling the same thing as you. But we have a job to finish for him.”

“He was telling me it’s time to work,” de Fougerolles said. €œAnd it was.”

Switzerland’s belated domination of Bosnia-Herzegovina earlier in the day — a game that was scoreless with 16 minutes to play had somehow finished 4-1 for the Swiss — had left Canada with only a distant chance of winning Group B.

Opening draws for both had cancelled each other out. The first tiebreaker is goals scored, and Canada had struggled to find them.

Now, semi-miraculously, Canada needed only one more to even the accounts.

Almost cinematically, Saliba soon scored it on an inch-perfect free kick. He ran to the touchline and lifted Kone’s empty black jersey, No. 8, up to the crowd. Now more tears came, but so did more cheering, the sort of noise you feel rather than hear.

Canada netted two more for good measure. Jonathan David, who had already scored twice, also scored the last, the 42nd goal of his unbelievable national-team career.

Canada will have to rally again before it meets favoured Switzerland, also in Vancouver, on June 24. Because Canada now leads the group by every possible measure, anything other than a loss will win it. 

First place is a massive advantage. Group B’s winner, after a full week of rest, will face a third-place team, again in Vancouver, in the Round of 32. The second-place finisher will instead head to Los Angeles to meet the second-place side in Group A after only three days off.

Marsch’s men will have to manage that all-important game, and the rest of their tournament, without Koné. There is a case to be made that he’s the worst player to leave them. In any other game, given any other result, his tragedy would have been all that anyone remembered.

Now it’s up to his teammates to fill the vacuum of his loss with more encouragement, with more passion, with more venom, with more resolve.

“We’re going to play for him, and you saw that,” Alistair Johnston said. €œIf we needed any extra motivation for this tournament, we’ve got it now.”

They finally know the sound that winning makes.

Senior Contributor

Chris Jones is a journalist and screenwriter who began his career covering baseball and boxing for the National Post. He later joined Esquire magazine, where he won two National Magazine Awards for his feature writing. His memoir, Legs Hearts Minds: Loss and Its Remedies, will be published by Random House in June.

Add some “good” to your morning and evening.

Get up to speed on what's happening in sports. Delivered weekdays.

---

---