Larin's late equalizer earns Canada first World Cup point

Ismaël Koné almost passed out. Cyle Larin was almost deafened.

Seventy-eight minutes into a Friday lunchtime where “almost” looked like becoming a Canadian curse, perhaps it was the jarringly definitive nature of that one single, swivelling moment that sparked such an uproarious outpouring of, well, everything.

Until last week Toronto Stadium was BMO Field. In his post-match press conference Jesse Marsch’s head was still scrambled enough from the afternoon’s events that he tripped over the names of the stadium: “It doesn’t feel like the same BMO … I guess … you guys didn’t hear that,” Canada’s coach said.

No one has heard the home of Canadian football sound like it did when Larin lashed in his late equaliser to grab a first-ever men’s World Cup point for the tournament’s co-hosts in their 1-1 draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The wild joy, the depth-of-the-chest relief of it all, the vocal cords still stretched as brains began some Group B mathematics and permutations. It all came out.

“Honestly, I felt like I was going to faint. It was crazy,” said Koné, the man whose slaloming run in off the left had sparked the breakthrough. “I felt like we did everything to give ourselves the chance to score. We were on top of them, we were pushing the game, we had momentum, we hit the bar. We deserved it. It was just a relief.”

Larin had been dropped to the bench for this long-awaited home opener, and he took just two minutes to prove his point after coming off the bench. The decibels soaring, he wheeled away to the southwest corner and put an index finger into each ear. Protecting the cochleae? Not quite.

“That’s for the fans, the reporters, and the journalists who say I shouldn’t have been where I’m supposed to be,” said Larin after the game. His first international goal in 18 months had arrived when his country needed it most. “But I’ve always proved them wrong. And I did it again. Hopefully now they can shut up.”

In one sense, perhaps. But maybe not definitively. Marsch had originally reshuffled his attack after two insipid displays in warm-up games against Uzbekistan and Ireland. Larin and Jonathan David, Canada’s record scorer, hadn’t clicked and the lack of finishing was causing the coach to even get a little cranky in the week leading in here. “We’re going to score more goals,” Marsch insisted on Monday. “So I don’t have to put up with any more stupid questions from you guys.”

Marsch was just 12 minutes away from a full press conference worth of questions he’d find stupid. Larin helped him avoid feeling foolish. So now what?

David’s glaring early miss and otherwise ineffective performance was probably the biggest negative from an afternoon that ended with such positivity. Tani Oluwaseyi, who’d replaced Larin in the starting XI, blazed an equally great opportunity over too. On the hour when Marsch called one David ashore to replace him with another, Union-SG’s Promise David, he was chasing the game and those scoring demons. That lasted only 16 minutes until Larin was unleashed and did the business, thanks in large part to a delicious flick from Promise David in the buildup.

Marsch was asked if he hoped this would be the dam-buster, not for Larin but for his entire attack. “On one level you can say the subs we made [had] a big impact so they were some good decisions,” he said. “But I gotta figure a way to get more out of the starters too.”

Next, his team jet across the country to Vancouver, where they will play Qatar on Thursday. One luxury afforded the co-hosts is an extra day’s break between games. Marsch could do with it as he weighs up his options. He admitted Jonathan David “didn’t have his best day” but reached for an intriguing example when he argued that Larin’s goal could spark a wider release.

“A home World Cup is a different occasion. It’s a different feel,” the American added. “I do think we’ll learn from this and if you look at World Cups historically, doesn’t matter if it’s Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia last World Cup or different scenarios where it starts a little bit tense in the beginning stages. Then the games come more to life and you see truer versions of teams.”

In the second-half when Canada were building that momentum which Koné referenced – and the Sassuolo midfielder was most responsible for that – Alphonso Davies sat on a cooler on the edge of the home dugout, his chin perched in the palm of one hand. The captain needs time to recover from injury. So too does defender Moïse Bombito.

Perhaps the greatest gift that Larin delivered was time. The equaliser also helped give Canada its moment of belonging at its own World Cup. That’s significant.

“I haven’t scored in a while, but I knew it was coming,” he said. “I’ve always come up [big] when Canada needed me.”