Canada's World Cup players relishing the support of loud, proud home crowd

It was the sorting of disturbance they testament relieve try when they are old men.

After Canada’s men scored six against Qatar, claiming their first World Cup win in the process, they might have expected love from the sold-out crowd at BC Place. But in one of those rare, beautiful moments when reality overwhelmed even their outsized dreams, they received more than an ordinary expression of it.

“The crowd in Vancouver, the national anthem — I got goosebumps,” Liam Millar said. “It was amazing. The energy the crowd gave, honestly, everything was amazing.”

For players and fans who have been around since this team’s relative dark ages, the scenes and soundtrack were close to surreal. It wasn’t so long ago that home games felt like away games, if they had any sense of occasion at all.

In a 2013 loss to Costa Rica at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, capacity 56,302, precisely 8,102 fans showed up. The Saskatoon Blades were drawing bigger crowds at the time. The now-mighty Voyageurs occupied one small section. They might have fit on a single bus.

Not coincidentally, Canada’s team was awful then, ranked 122nd in the world and in the middle of a 16-game winless streak that started with a humiliating 8-1 loss to Honduras. There were desperate nights in Toronto that might as well have been in Glasgow or Kingston, Jamaica, and it was deemed, probably correctly, that Edmonton’s empty stadium was better than a hostile one.

Now, in surprisingly short order, that same team has earned a far different reception. In its nervy opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina in Toronto, it played in front of a mostly favourable crowd, with a few small, vocal sections of blue. In Vancouver, the audience was nearly entirely Canadian, except for one clutch of outmatched Qataris in an otherwise red sea.

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Cyle Larin, the 31-year-old veteran, found himself marvelling at what he saw and heard. He had played in some of those empty stadiums. His celebration after his opening goal — eyes closed, fingers in his ears — was a message to his critics but could have been an act of self-preservation. It was all so much for him to take in.

“Even after the game, the whole stadium was still full,” he said. “That was an amazing feeling, to see them still cheering. I think we’ve come a long way since I’ve been here.”

Max Crépeau also said that he’d never felt a surge in Vancouver like it. “It’s the best atmosphere in Vancouver that I’ve ever experienced,” he said. “It was amazing.”

Now the city, like Canada’s men, has an incredible chance to outdo itself. 

With a win or draw against Switzerland at B.C. Place on Wednesday, Canada will win Group B. If it does, its Round of 32 game, its first World Cup knockout match, will also be in Vancouver. If it wins that game, its Round of 16 game will be, too.

It is the clearest imaginable path to glory in the program’s history. The tournament’s three co-hosts have won five of their six games and drawn the other, combining to outscore their opponents 16-2. Playing at home hasn’t been an advantage in this sprawling, exhausting World Cup; it’s been permission to launch.

Only hours after Jesse Marsch had led Canada to its historic victory over Qatar, he was already talking about what might — what should — come next. His constant instruction to his players is faster, faster, faster. His new demand of their fans is more, more, more.

“We’ve been trying to create a movement,” he said. “This is an opportunity to galvanize and validate everything that’s been done in the last two years, but also in the lead-up to the last two years. Can we replicate it even more as a team, as a community, and as a country?”

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Like Millar, Derek Cornelius most felt the energy of the Vancouver crowd before the game. It was during the anthem, less sung than shouted, that he sensed in his chest that something had changed.

“The national anthem is where you can really see that we’re doing something right,” he said. “To hear 50,000 Canadians screaming the national anthem, it’s something that’s special. I try not to take it for granted.”

Neither should the 50,000 fans who will get to see Canada’s men play on Wednesday.

It’s their once-in-a-lifetime chance to make an impression that the country, and the world, will never forget.

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