Cyle Larin's strike unleashes joy and saves
Canada from the curse of 'almost'
================================================

Ismaël Koné almost passed out. Cyle Larin was
almost deafened.

Seventy-eight minutes into a Friday lunchtime
where "almost" looked like becoming a Canadian
curse, perhaps it was the jarringly definitive
nature of that one single, swivelling moment
that sparked such an uproarious outpouring of,
well, everything.

Until last week Toronto Stadium was BMO Field.
In his post-match press conference Jesse
Marsch's head was still scrambled enough from
the afternoon's events that he tripped over the
names of the stadium: "It doesn't feel like the
same BMO ... I guess ... you guys didn't hear
that," Canada's coach said.

No one has heard the home of Canadian football
sound like it did when Larin lashed in his late
equaliser to grab a first-ever men's World Cup
point for the tournament's co-hosts in their 1-1
draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The wild joy,
the depth-of-the-chest relief of it all, the
vocal cords still stretched as brains began some
Group B mathematics and permutations. It all
came out.

"Honestly, I felt like I was going to faint. It
was crazy," said Koné, the man whose slaloming
run in off the left had sparked the
breakthrough. "I felt like we did everything to
give ourselves the chance to score. We were on
top of them, we were pushing the game, we had
momentum, we hit the bar. We deserved it. It was
just a relief."

Larin had been dropped to the bench for this
long-awaited home opener, and he took just two
minutes to prove his point after coming off the
bench. The decibels soaring, he wheeled away to
the southwest corner and put an index finger
into each ear. Protecting the cochleae? Not
quite.

"That's for the fans, the reporters, and the
journalists who say I shouldn't have been where
I'm supposed to be," said Larin after the game.
His first international goal in 18 months had
arrived when his country needed it most. "But
I've always proved them wrong. And I did it
again. Hopefully now they can shut up."

In one sense, perhaps. But maybe not
definitively. Marsch had originally reshuffled
his attack after two insipid displays in warm-up
games against Uzbekistan and Ireland. Larin and
Jonathan David, Canada's record scorer, hadn't
clicked and the lack of finishing was causing
the coach to even get a little cranky in the
week leading in here. "We're going to score more
goals," Marsch insisted on Monday. "So I don't
have to put up with any more stupid questions
from you guys."

Marsch was just 12 minutes away from a full
press conference worth of questions he'd find
stupid. Larin helped him avoid feeling foolish.
So now what?

David's glaring early miss and otherwise
ineffective performance was probably the biggest
negative from an afternoon that ended with such
positivity. Tani Oluwaseyi, who'd replaced Larin
in the starting XI, blazed an equally great
opportunity over too. On the hour when Marsch
called one David ashore to replace him with
another, Union-SG's Promise David, he was
chasing the game and those scoring demons. That
lasted only 16 minutes until Larin was unleashed
and did the business, thanks in large part to a
delicious flick from Promise David in the
buildup.

Marsch was asked if he hoped this would be the
dam-buster, not for Larin but for his entire
attack. "On one level you can say the subs we
made [had] a big impact so they were some good
decisions," he said. "But I gotta figure a way
to get more out of the starters too."

Next, his team jet across the country to
Vancouver, where they will play Qatar on
Thursday. One luxury afforded the co-hosts is an
extra day's break between games. Marsch could do
with it as he weighs up his options. He admitted
Jonathan David "didn't have his best day" but
reached for an intriguing example when he argued
that Larin's goal could spark a wider release.

"A home World Cup is a different occasion. It's
a different feel," the American added. "I do
think we'll learn from this and if you look at
World Cups historically, doesn't matter if it's
Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia last World Cup
or different scenarios where it starts a little
bit tense in the beginning stages. Then the
games come more to life and you see truer
versions of teams."

In the second-half when Canada were building
that momentum which Koné referenced - and the
Sassuolo midfielder was most responsible for
that - Alphonso Davies sat on a cooler on the
edge of the home dugout, his chin perched in the
palm of one hand. The captain needs time to
recover from injury. So too does defender Moïse
Bombito.

Perhaps the greatest gift that Larin delivered
was time. The equaliser also helped give Canada
its moment of belonging at its own World Cup.
That's significant.

"I haven't scored in a while, but I knew it was
coming," he said. "I've always come up [big]
when Canada needed me."



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