Canada officially qualifies for first FIFA World Cup since 1986

Mar 27 2022, 9:53 pm

Don’t adjust your television set — Canada is on its way to the FIFA World Cup.

In freezing weather on Sunday afternoon at Toronto’s BMO Field, Canada punched its ticket to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar with a 4-0 win against Jamaica.

The appearance at the World Cup will be Canada’s first since the 1986 tournament taking place in Mexico.

Cyle Larin opened the scoring for Canada, with a slick strike in the 13th minute to give the home side a 1-0 lead.

The goal was the 13th of the World Cup qualifying campaign in 15 matches for Larin, who is Canada’s men’s national team all-time leading goalscorer with 24 career goals.

Tajon Buchanan added an insurance marker just before halftime to give Canada a 2-nil lead.

Junior Hoilett put the match to bed in the 83rd minute with the team’s third goal.

Jamaica then conceded an unfortunate own goal in the 89th minute to seal the deal for the Canadians.

A crowd of 29,122 came out for the match, a record for the men’s national team at BMO Field.

The match came three days after missing a chance to qualify in Costa Rica on Thursday, where Canada suffered its first defeat of the final round of qualifying via the way of a 1-0 loss.

With the win, Canada has 28 points through 13 matches, tops in CONCACAF.

Canada finishes its home qualifying campaign with an unbeaten record: five wins, one draw, and zero losses. Canada is set to travel to Panama for a match Wednesday evening for its final of 14 qualifying matches.

Canada is the first team to qualify from the CONCACAF region with three spots available, as well as a fourth-place team that will head to an interconfederational playoff this June in Qatar.

Three other matches are set to be played today across the final round of CONCACAF qualifying: El Salvador-Costa Rica, USA-Panama, and Honduras-Mexico.

More to come…

Adam LaskarisAdam Laskaris

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