"We want to win the World Cup." Jesse Marsch said that last year and presumably kept a straight face. Canada — a country that has played six World Cup matches in its entire history and lost all six — is hosting 2026 with genuine belief it can go deep. Whether that belief is ambition or delusion depends entirely on whether Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David stay fit.
The numbers behind Canada's rise are real. In 2015, they were ranked 116th in the world. By 2025, they'd climbed to 26th. That's not a rounding error — that's a fundamental shift in how the country develops and exports players. Canada finished above Mexico and the United States in 2022 World Cup qualifying. They reached the Copa America semi-finals in 2024, losing narrowly to world champions Argentina. This is a functioning international programme, not a flag-waving exercise.
The squad that actually justifies the optimism
Davies was born in a Ghanaian refugee camp to Liberian parents, moved to Canada at five, and is now starting for Bayern Munich. David — born in New York to Haitian parents — plays for Juventus and is one of the most clinical strikers in Serie A. Ismael Kone came from Ivory Coast and is operating in the same league. This is a squad built on the Canadian immigrant experience, and Marsch says the players' connection to the national team is anything but performative.
"The love they have of being Canadian and playing for the Canadian national team is really strong," he said. That matters when you're playing in front of a home crowd that's still learning the offside rule.
Canada opens Group B against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 12, then faces Qatar and Switzerland. It's not a kind group — Switzerland are organised and defensively disciplined, and they won't be overawed by the occasion. Group stage elimination is a genuine possibility, and Marsch acknowledged it plainly: "It's possible we get knocked out of the group." At least he's not pretending the road is clear.
What a deep run would actually mean
Canadian officials are banking on a prolonged tournament run the same way US Soccer used the 1994 World Cup as a launchpad. Football is already the largest participatory sport in Canada — nearly one million registered players — but converting that grassroots base into a sustained professional culture requires the kind of television moments that only a home World Cup can deliver. Canada Soccer CEO Kevin Blue put it simply: "A long run in the tournament that's compelling will create viewership demand for soccer going forward, in all forms."
From a market perspective, Canada's group-stage odds and outright tournament price will be shaped heavily by the Davies and David injury news as June approaches. A Canada that gets out of the group is a different betting proposition entirely — the home crowd advantage across 13 matches in Toronto and Vancouver is not nothing.
This is the best Canadian squad ever assembled, on home soil, coached by a man who thinks settling for a single win is a failure of imagination. They've earned the right to back themselves. Whether the rest of the world catches up to that view starts June 12 in what will be Canada's first-ever World Cup match on Canadian soil — 150 years after the country played its first organised football match.
