TORONTO — After 10 games staged in Europe and the U.S., Canada coach Jesse Marsch is getting his first real taste of what lies ahead 20 months from now when the 2026 World Cup kicks off.
Marsch and the 38th-ranked Canadian men host No. 37 Panama in an international friendly Tuesday at Toronto's BMO Field, which will stage the first of 13 World Cup games in Canada on June 12, 2026.
Canada Soccer said more than 22,200 tickets had been sold for the Panama game as of Monday morning.
The Canadians got a feel for the home support last week during their camp in Montreal, where they held an open practice and sent players out to mingle with various local youth clubs.
"I feel like sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you may forget about the impact you're making on people around Canada," said defender Derek Cornelius, who plays his club football in France for Marseille.
He is already wondering about the reception Canada could get if it goes on a run in 2026, as it did at this summer's Copa America where it made it to the third-place game before losing to No. 11 Uruguay in a penalty shootout.
"With the entire world watching, how special that would," said Cornelius. "It's just more exciting, but also more motivating to really make sure that we do the work now that's going to make us successful for the World Cup that's going to be coming in less than two years."
The Canadian men are 2-3-5 under Marsch, with one of those ties turning into the shootout loss to Uruguay and another a shootout win over No. 40 Venezuela, also at Copa America.
"We're only scratching the surface, for me, in terms of how good I believe they can become," said Marsch. "And obviously they've accelerated the learning curve with how they've performed and how they've adapted."
The American coach says he will continue to push the squad.
"Because my vision is not to win a game, not to get out of the group, but to be winners at the World Cup," he said. "Of course, can we raise the trophy? It's not time to speak about that yet. But we want to think on home soil that against any opponent, that we can be the aggressor, that we can be the better team and that we can find ways to win on the biggest stage."
The expanded 2026 World Cup, which is being co-hosted by the U.S. and Mexico, will feature 48 teams. Canada and Mexico will each host 13 games with the U.S. staging the remaining 78.
Vancouver's B.C. Place Stadium will host seven games, with six at BMO Field.
Marsch says he expects his team will play 20 to 30 games in the lead-up to the tournament. And with an automatic tournament berth as co-host, that means organizing a lot of friendlies to fill out the schedule outside CONCACAF Gold Cup and Nations League play.
With the international schedule congested already, that is not easy — as shown by Canada Soccer's inability to find a second opponent for this international window. Instead, the Canadian men played a closed-door game against a CF Montreal side, winning 5-0.
"There are major challenges with scheduling and getting the right kind of opponents," said Marsch. "We've been trying to work ahead of time with European nations, with African nations, with Asian nations, South American nations, on what their potential schedules could look like.
"It's complicated and we can't necessarily make anything concrete right now," he added. "But we're really trying to build out a robust schedule that gives our players and our team the opportunity to play against the best opponents possible in the preparation for '26."
The Canadian men have not played at home since a 3-2 loss to Jamaica on Nov. 21, 2023, in the return leg of the Nations League quarterfinal, before an announced crowd of 17,588 at BMO Field. That defeat snapped a record 17-game home undefeated run (15-0-2) for Canada — since a 3-0 loss to Mexico in March 2016 in a World Cup qualifier at Vancouver — and a 22-game unbeaten run at BMO Field (15-0-7), dating back to a 2-0 loss to Peru in September 2010.
Tuesday's Panama friendly is a warm-up for 2024-25 CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal play, with Canada hosting the second leg of the tie scheduled for Nov. 19 at BMO Field.
Canada, which trained Monday at Toronto FC's practice facility, is coming off two good showings in September, a scoreless draw with No. 17 Mexico and 2-0 win over the 18th-ranked U.S.
Panama lost 2-0 to the U.S. on Saturday in Austin, Texas, in Mauricio Pochettino's debut as American coach.
Canada is 5-2-6 all-time against Panama and won 2-0 the last time they met in last year's Nations League semifinal in Las Vegas, in former captain Atiba Hutchinson's 104th and final national team appearance.
Two players have left the Canada camp already, with defender Luc de Fougerolles returning to England's Fulham and goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois rejoining CF Montreal.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 14, 2024
Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press