This World Cup provided the stage for plenty of Canada’s young core to break out and establish themselves as the next era of the national team program, with the number of stars all under 25 years old, including Luc De Fougerolles (20), Ismaël Koné (24), Nathan Saliba (22), Promise David (25) and Niko Sigur (22).
Other potential key players for the future from the current group include Davies (25), who, if he can return to full health, will be 29 at what could be his third World Cup, and Bombito, who will be 30 and at the prime age for a starting center back.
Those U25 talents, though, largely showed that they can be among the elite at a World Cup level and will have plenty more opportunities as they form the next core of the national team.
Who comes in around them stands as a mystery. While the country’s pathways have grown, a player like Bombito was not discovered until he was 22 in the MLS SuperDraft, after going through junior college and never playing for Canada at youth levels. It’s likely others have fallen through similar cracks and could emerge in the next few years.
“I think that the sport has come a long way, and it’s still got a ways to go in terms of being ingrained into Canadian identity… but we know that with how Canada is built up as a population in terms of the actual demographics and all the different cultures, that there’s no reason why soccer shouldn’t be one of the most popular, if not the most popular sport,” Alistair Johnston said.
“If we keep doing this, I won’t be too surprised if the game continues to grow, and that’s something that as players, as the staff said, we all want to do, because we want this game to become as big as possible and also we want our national team to continue to take steps to compete at a higher and higher level as the years go by.”
The most important part of the whole run, though, might not be the youth set for 2030, but rather what the increased interest has done for the sport’s fandom among Canadian youth, who could be enticed to chase soccer dreams more than ever, potentially laying the groundwork for 2034 and beyond. If the previous Canadian-hosted Olympics in 1976, 1988 and 2010 are any indication of the inspiration factor laying the groundwork for future success, then there should be plenty of hope for the next decade of athletes.