Canada brought home first World Cup win

Trisha Matabalan, Philippine Canadian Inquirer
June 19, 2026

(Photo courtesy: Canada Soccer/Facebook)

CANADA – The entire country celebrated as Canada’s male soccer team brought home their first ever World Cup win on home soil while being one of the three co-hosts of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. This historic moment was punctuated by Canada taking a 6-0 win from Qatar at the Vancouver Stadium, even when a grievous injury to midfielder Ismael Kone during the second half momentarily halted the game. He was carried off in a stretcher and the tackle was then classified as a red-card offense.

In a press conference after the legendary win, Canada coach Jesse Marsch stated that Kone was currently in the hospital, preparing for surgery. “You got to see how everyone was crushed [by Kone’s injury] but we had to find a way to stay focused,” he said.

He also mentioned that he wanted to be clear that Qatar’s Assim Madibo went to the dressing room after the game to apologize for the scuffle and Kone had let the team know that he did, making Marsch believe that Madibo did not mean “such a gruesome tackle”, though he did not understand the bench’s insistence that it was not a red card offense.

When asked about the Qatari’s players and if he considered them ‘overly physical’, he clarified, “Before the injury, I thought the match was pretty good. I think that obviously we had a very dominant performance in the first half, but I think that probably their coach wanted to fire them up a little bit during half-time to give them a chance to not go down by four because that means they have to beat Bosnia.”

Their next game will be against Switzerland and the Canada team is raring to advance to the World Cup’s elimination rounds for the first time in history.