Canada Day Soccerball Special: Canada’s 1986 World Cup Adventure – No Goals, Some Glory

Ollie Irish

1st, July 2010

6 Comments

By Ollie Irish

Canada qualified for the World Cup finals once, in 1986. Never before, not since. To get there, the Canucks beat Honduras – a momentous day in Canadian soccer history – but then lost all three of their group games in Mexico that year. They didn’t disgrace themselves, however, losing only 1-0 to then-European Champions France (to a late Jean-Pierre Papin goal), 2-0 to Hungary and then 2-0 to the Soviet Union. Okay, they didn’t score any goals but they played hard and were a genuinely tough team to beat.

On Canada Day, Pies salutes the rugged class of ’86 with this little YouTube gem:

And we must never, EVER forget that Canada, represented by Galt FC, won a gold medal in football at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St Louis. Also, let it never, EVER be mentioned that only three teams competed for medals that year (the other two were American).

Go Canada. I’d love to see them qualify for Brazil 2014.

Posted in International football, Retro, Videos, World Cup

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6 Comments

  1. mikedamone says:

    if you ever think the US is the country with the least interest in football…. take a look to the north and you’ll think again (least interest per capita? Perhaps although one could also consider China or India). Probably doesn’t help that the place is covered in snow 8 months out of the year.

    In Canada one sport rules and its so obvious I don’t even have to mention it.

  2. tmvp says:

    That’s hardly true, there’s a lot of interest in Canada, you just have to see the support the clubs have to find that out. Having a large immigrant population especially from South America and Europe you really don’t have to go far to find a football fan.

  3. Deckard says:

    Baby seal clubbing right?

  4. Ollie says:

    I think with Montreal Impact coming to MLS, football will grow massively – in Quebec especially.

  5. Montesquieu says:

    @mike

    You obviously don’t know shit about the country you seem to have so much to say about. The majority of Canada’s population lives within a hundred kilometres of the U.S Border, in which for the most part is a temperate climate which is subject to heat, rain and a little snow on the side. During the summer, the temperatures reach up to 40 some odd degrees celsius plus humidity.

    So yup, you’re an idiot.

  6. Walker says:

    Mike has absolutely no knowledge of what he speaks of. Canada is a hot-bed of footy fueled fans. per capita, Canada is leading the North American charge not following it! The cities north of the board are very international meaning they have an established football/soccer fan base decades old.

    America is still weaning on baseball and gridiron, one already with a foot in the grave, the other with a season that lasts 17 games.

    join me at http://www.laligaweekly.com, http://www.serieaweekly.com and hopefully our new site at eplweekly.com

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