Does Canada Suck at Soccer?

Canada made it to the final 16 during the 2026 World Cup. Before that, the men’s team had just two goals and no wins since their first World Cup appearance in 1986.

With the World Cup now behind us, we can rightly feel proud of our success as first-time hosts and the performance of the men’s team.

Canada won two games, scored 8 goals, and the squad includes players from major professional clubs.

We’re riding high, but realistically a global title is still a far-off dream for the men’s team.

And while the women are among the global powerhouses in the sport, Canada still struggles with investments in soccer infrastructure and youth development. So how did we get here?

Toronto’s first soccer game was played using misremembered rules on a cricket pitch in 1863. From these strange beginnings, the game would grow rapidly across the country.

Organized soccer began in 19th-century England with the adoption of the first official set of rules in London in 1863. Before that, there was no widely agreed set of rules: some versions of the game allowed players to use their hands, others allowed “hacking” — kicking players in the legs to win the ball. The name soccer comes from Association Football, the formal name of the sport. It’s a shortening of “Association” (soc) with ‑er added to the end.

The Toronto Lacrosse Club and the Carlton Cricket Club played the first recorded soccer game in North America on Parliament Street in October 1876. Players tried to use the 1863 rules with just one problem — they were recalled from memory. As a result, the goalposts were placed too close together, and the game ended in a scoreless draw.

In February 1877, less than a year after the first game on Parliament Street, the Dominion Football Association was formed. Although the league was dissolved by 1881, it was the first organized soccer association outside of Britain, and it made Toronto an early global leader in the sport.

Ulster FC were among the early successful teams in Toronto. Also known as the Red Handers, the team was formed by Irish Protestants in 1914. Just two years later, they topped the Toronto Senior League. They would go on to win numerous provincial and national championships in the early 20th century.

Their floodlit stadium, considered one of the finest on the continent, was at Gerrard and Greenwood from 1925 to 1942. In 1927, it could hold up 12,000 fans — 4,500 more than Arena Gardens, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

One of the Red Handers’ most significant matches was a 1930 exhibition game against Glasgow Rangers, one of the most dominant teams in Europe. 9,000 fans cheered the team to a thrilling 4–3 win.

While Ulster FC experienced incredible popularity and dominance in the early 20th century, the Great Depression and the Second World War resulted in financial stress and losses. The stadium was torn down in the 1940s and the team disbanded in the 1960s.

Soccer itself followed a similar trajectory in Canada — once competitive with other major sports, the game experienced a decline in popularity. It would take decades and a major cultural shift for the comeback to begin.

Much of Toronto’s soccer history and culture has been driven by immigrants and newcomers who brought with them their love of and passion for the beautiful game.

After the First and Second World War, Canada welcomed immigrants from many European countries where soccer was wildly popular. New and updated government policies resulted in an estimated 1.4 million European immigrants settling in Toronto between 1945 and 1982. The latter half of the 20th century immigration from places like the Caribbean in the 1960s and Latin America in the 1970s.

These newcomers brought their passion for soccer with them. Many teams in Toronto were established based on the origin of their players, like Toronto Italia, Toronto Metros-Croatia, and West Indies United. By 1966, 43 of the 55 teams in the Toronto and District Soccer League had names that reflected the origins of their players.

Team rivalries weren’t always peaceful. Violence fueled by ethnic and racial tension was common. Police were hired for crowd control and to protect officials and players from fans.

At one 1959 game, a Toronto Italia fan tried to enter the Toronto Hungaria dressing room. Turned away, the fan knocked over a police officer and then, running onto Shaw Street, kicked another before being subdued. Other fans threw rocks and pieces of fencing at police, and as the riot escalated, some attempted to escape by climbing into neighbouring yards, basements, and onto roofs.

Although it may appear soccer was divisive, it also provided opportunities to make friends with other newcomers. Soccer was not only a casual pastime — it also fostered a sense of community for people far from their homelands.

From a range of playing styles and traditions within immigrant communities, a distinctly Canadian style of soccer developed, blending global playing styles and emphasizing athleticism and intensity.

Still, the sport failed to gain a foothold in the Canadian mainstream, due in part to its status as an immigrant game and the power and popularity of hockey, baseball, and football.

Like few other places in the world, it was other countries’ World Cup victories that built community, cultural pride, and helped grow our game.

At around 4 p.m. on July 11, 1982, Toronto’s Corso Italia exploded with sound and colour. An estimated 300,000 Italian soccer fans spilled onto St. Clair Avenue West to celebrate their country’s first World Cup in 44 years, defeating West Germany 3–1.

This was the first World Cup Final broadcast on the CBC, meaning anyone with even a makeshift antenna was able to watch the game at home.

The match took place during a political era of multiculturalism, a federal policy adopted in 1971 that recognized diversity as part of the Canadian identity and the legal rights of immigrants to equal participation in society.

Now, more than 40 years later, the 1982 celebrations are still seen as a significant moment for Italians in Toronto. When they filled the street with blue shirts, they were not only asserting their identity as Italian Canadians, but also their right to belong in Canadian public places as Canadians.

Italians aren’t the only ones to have a moment like that.

In 2002, during South Korea’s unprecedented World Cup run, fans woke in the early hours to watch them play. Thousands gathered on Bloor Street after each victory. South Korea finished in fourth place, becoming the first Asian country to reach the semi-finals.

Also in 2002, when Brazil won the World Cup, Toronto’s west end burst into life. College and Ossington became the epicentre of celebrations as fans played drums, chanted, blew whistles, and waved the Brazilian flag with pride.

But where was Team Canada in all this?

Soccer became immensely popular among young people in the 1960s and 1970s, and has sustained its popularity through local house leagues and clubs.

Kids kicking a ball around a park might have saved the Canadian game.

The rise in youth participation happened for a few reasons: games were appearing on TV, equipment was cheap, and the non-contact nature of the sport made it safer than football or hockey.

Soccer also continued to be important for immigrant communities. Organized tours to Europe, Latin America, and other places connected youth soccer players with their country’s soccer culture.

Toronto is home to the world’s largest youth soccer charity tournament. The Robbie — mentioned in the Barenaked Ladies’ hit One Week and named for Robbie Wimbs, a young cystic fibrosis patient — has taken place in Scarborough every summer since 1967.

Many great Canadian players are Robbie alumni such as Dwayne de Roasrio, Kadeisha Buchanan, Ashley Lawrence, and Carmelina Muscato.

Emerging from many fallow decades, soccer is now one of the most popular sport for youth in Canada, surpassing even hockey. Today about half of all Canadian kids — about one million youngsters — play soccer thanks to low barriers to entry and the sport’s strong community roots.

Women were not allowed to play organized soccer until the 1960s. Despite decades of exclusion, Canadian women have reclaimed the sport.

Too weak, too risky.

For decades, women were kept out of soccer (and most other sports) by countless barriers, rules, and bans. In 1922, organized women’s soccer was effectively banned by the sport’s governing body in Canada, which further hurt the growth of the game.

In 1975 two female law students at the University of Toronto (where there was no women’s league) were prohibited from playing on their faculty’s intramural soccer league alongside their male peers.

The faculty director reportedly told the women that by allowing them to play he’d be exposing them to unnecessary risk. He claimed that women are 20% weaker than men and for 10 days of the month women are an additional 15% weaker. He was also concerned about the men’s fun, feeling that men would be uncomfortable tackling women.

“As far as I’m concerned that’s their problem,” said Linda Robinson, one of the women who was prohibited from joining the league. The women raised the case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, and their advocacy resulted in the university opening intramural teams to men and women.

As the girls game developed they even played against professional athletes. During the 1979 Robbie, the St. Andrews girls’ youth team from Scarborough played against a team consisting mostly of Maple Leafs hockey players.

6,500 spectators watched the game, which featured a St. Andrews’ victory with a final score of 4–3 decided by penalty kicks. Today up to 85,000 girls participate in soccer and make up about 40% of all registered players.

Despite soccer’s popularity among women and girls, women soccer players were still not given the same opportunities to play professionally.

Canada wouldn’t have a women’s national team until 1986 and there was no professional women’s soccer league in Canada until the formation of the Northern Super League in 2025.

Until 2026, Canada’s men’s team had failed to make their mark globally. Meanwhile, the women are among the best in the world.

Canada’s first appearance at the FIFA World Cup was at Mexico 1986. They didn’t impress. The team failed to score a single goal and went home in the group stage, finishing last in Group C behind the Soviet Union, France, and Hungary.

The men’s team wouldn’t qualify again until Qatar 2022 when Alphonso Davies scored Canada’s first World Cup goal in the final moments of the team’s match against Croatia.

Following a fourth place finish at Copa America in 2024, the team ranked 30th worldwide and automatically qualified for the 2026 tournament as co-hosts with the USA and Mexico.

40 years after their first attempt, Canada won its first game — a 6-0 hammering of Qatar — in front of a home crowd at BC Place in Vancouver and qualified for the knockout stage.

Currently ranked 9th in the world, the women’s team has experienced more success, qualifying for 8 of the 9 editions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, with their best finish being fourth place in 2003.

Team Canada’s Christine Sinclair, who retired from soccer in 2023, is currently the world’s all-time scoring leader with an impressive 190 goals — more than any other man or woman. Sinclair’s scoring record was recognized by FIFA when she was awarded the FIFA Special Award for an Outstanding Career Achievement in 2022. In 2025, Sinclair was inducted into the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame.

So, does Canada suck at soccer?

The sport’s infrastructure has improved dramatically from the earliest games played on cricket and lacrosse pitches.

Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver have Major League Soccer teams and the federal government has also announced over $755 million in funding for increasing youth participation, hosting sporting events, and supporting high-performance athletes.

Previous investments in the sport are finally paying off: Alphonso Davies began playing soccer as a kid in Edmonton before joining the Vancouver Whitecaps aged 14. Cyle Larin, Stephen Eustáquio, Jonathan David, and Promise David also all played in Canadian youth leagues before going pro overseas.

As recent successes have shown, we don’t suck anymore, but we’ll be waiting a long time for a World Cup win.