AL RAYYAN, Qatar — Poor Canada. Until the 44th minute it was, by far, the better team in its World Cup opener, before a quick free kick and a fine finish from Michy Batshuayi gave Belgium a 1–0 victory it barely deserved. And so Canada, having done very little wrong, suffers the ignominy of becoming the first team to play four World Cup matches and fail to score in any of them. It has, at least, some way to go before matching Bulgaria’s record of 17 World Cup games before its first win.
The feeling in 1986, when it was drawn in an impossibly difficult group with France, Hungary and the USSR, was that it had acquitted itself well, conceding just five goals across the three games. Today, it was not about keeping the score down, or a brave performance against obviously superior opponents. Today, it should have won. It can still dream of going through to the knockout stage. It had 22 shots. Its xG by halftime was above 2. It missed a penalty. And yet it went in behind at the break, undone by the most basic of sucker punches.
The Canada coach John Herdman was understandably pleased with everything but the result and was keen to place the game in historical context. “They showed tonight that they do belong here,” he said. “It’s been a long time. The fans walked away proud and feeling like we are a football nation.”
