Tani Oluwaseyi on Canada’s 3 p.m. ET World Cup opener in Toronto

tani oluwaseyi and Canada took the field in Toronto for the country’s first-ever FIFA World Cup game on home soil, with Bosnia-Herzegovina lined up across from them before the 3 p.m. ET kickoff. Alphonso Davies was ruled out, leaving Canada to open this moment without its captain.

Toronto before kickoff

One hour before kickoff, Anita Platz and Talia Niss were at Pennies in Toronto’s Little Italy, where Platz described the atmosphere as “pretty exciting.” The buildup stretched beyond one bar. Fans also packed Nathan Phillips Square, where the crowd cheered for Canadians in the opening ceremony and players shown on the screen.

That same crowd did not stay uniformly polite. Some people booed when Bosnian fans were shown, while only a few Bosnia-Herzegovina supporters were outside Toronto City Hall. The scenes around the square gave the match a rare local edge before the first whistle.

Canada’s starting eleven

Canada entered the match with 11 men whose combined total was 520 caps. Jonathan David led the starters with 77, and Richie Laryea followed with 75. Luc de Fougerolles had 13 caps, the fewest in the Canadian lineup.

The gap in experience sat next to the scale of the occasion. Canada was not only playing Bosnia-Herzegovina; it was doing so in the country’s first World Cup game on home soil, a setting that put the lineup under immediate attention before the ball was even kicked.

Union Station delays

Getting there was not seamless. GO trains were delayed by a few minutes at Union Station, and a Metrolinx employee said the increased frequency tied to the World Cup was “overheating” the tracks and needed more time to cool down.

Before kickoff, the Canadian goalkeepers came out for warm-up to the sound of Steppenwolf’s Born to Be Wild, a sharp note in a day built around an unfamiliar stage for men’s soccer in Canada. For fans in Toronto, the practical picture was simple: arrive early, expect delays of a few minutes, and let the city’s first home-soil World Cup game do the rest.