‘I always prove them wrong’: Canadian World Cup hero Cyle Larin defiant in face of constant criticism
It was an instantly iconic image: Cyle Larin, two minutes after he first jogged onto the pitch, standing in front of a roaring Toronto Stadium crowd, in the moments after he scored one of the great goals of his life and in Canadian soccer history, with his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears.
His goal — a composed 78th-minute finish from the top of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s body-filled box — drew Canada’s men level in their first World Cup match on home soil, and eventually earned them their first point.
“Today was special,” Larin said after. “I showed when I played, I scored.”
His defiant pose after was no accident. The 31-year-old receives more online abuse than perhaps any of Canada’s players, a particular affront given his contributions to a program that he’s led from the front since 2014. He’s the second-leading goal scorer among Canadian men, behind only Jonathan David; Friday’s historic marker was his 31st, a remarkable number.
But in many eyes, he can look old and slow, too measured when the modern game calls for a more unbridled, frenzied attack.
“I always prove them wrong,” Larin said of his detractors. “I did it again. Hopefully now they can shut up.”
Awkwardly, Jesse Marsch, his head coach, has sometimes been one of them.
Soccer North hosts Donnovan Bennett and Amy Walsh discuss Canada’s opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina at the FIFA World Cup and are joined by guest Kyle Bekker from Forge FC.
Marsch believes that soccer, especially World Cup soccer, is a young man’s game, best played at an extraordinary pace. His constant instruction during the opening match, expressed with every fibre of his coiled-up being, was faster, faster, faster.
That’s why he dropped Larin for Tani Oluwaseyi, the quick, rangy 26-year-old, slotted in front of the more diminutive David like a kind of maniacal space-making machine.
Not long ago, Oluwaseyi’s start wouldn’t have been a shock. He and David had become Marsch’s standard forward pairing after Larin lost his coach’s esteem. Miserable club stints at Mallorca and Feyenoord made Larin seem unmotivated and spent; Oluwaseyi, in comparison, looked on the ascent.
That was before Larin’s fortuitous February loan to Southampton. He lit up with the Saints, scoring eight goals in 16 Championship appearances, including six in his last eight.
“It’s a proper grown man who came into the dressing room, and he’s fit right in,” Tonda Eckert, his club coach, told CBC in April. “He’s only getting better and better. Excellent development for him so far, and I’m sure he’ll have a big impact for Canada at the World Cup.”
Scoring is a confidence game, and Marsch couldn’t ignore Larin’s return to form, or Eckert’s prescient prediction. Larin had lately reclaimed his starting spot from Oluwaseyi, including in pre-tournament friendlies against Uzbekistan and Ireland.
But Marsch changed his mind against Bosnia-Herzegovina, reverting to his colder former judgments, and now, heading into Thursday’s must-win game against Qatar, he’s left himself with something of a dilemma.
Larin’s goal, and the unsubtle message he delivered after it, almost compels Marsch to start him.
The question then becomes: Who starts with him?
The obvious answer is Jonathan David, arguably Canada’s best player. But if form is the deciding factor, David is not nearly at the height of his.
He hasn’t scored in open play for his country in nearly a year. He’s also famously struggled with Juventus, his Italian club side, scoring only once in his last 13 appearances, a glancing header against Bologna in April.
More crucially, he also missed an early sitter against Bosnia-Herzegovina, a fluffed left-footed attempt from near the penalty spot that left Marsch incandescent, overcome with a spasm of rage.
In the 61st minute and needing a goal, Marsch did something seismic: He took off Jonathan David for Promise David, Canada’s emergent personality and 24-year-old man mountain. Even Oluwaseyi looked surprised to be staying on, after bottling his own great first-half chance. He wasn’t replaced until Larin came on in the 76th minute and did what he did.
“Jonny didn’t have his best day,” Marsch said after. “But make no mistake: He’s an incredibly important player for us and we will need him to be at his best in this tournament. Without him in top form, we are not the same team we have the potential to be.”
That’s all undeniably true. Marsch could start Jonathan David and Larin against Qatar and point to their historic goal-scoring heroics — they now have 70 between them — as his easy justification. He could also hope that a romp against the lightly regarded Qataris could help his all-time greats find the spark they’ll need later in the tournament.
“It’s just getting back into playing more often here and playing more games with Jonny,” Larin said last week. “In 2021, when we played every game together, it was goal after goal. I think it’s just finding that rhythm again with him. The goals will come, and I’ve always showed that.”
But it’s also true that David isn’t in top form, and the World Cup does not often give players the time and space to find it.
Enter Promise.
The younger, taller David fed Larin for Friday’s fate-turning goal, a combination that gave them joy in training the day before. He’s also scored 15 goals in 37 appearances with Union Saint-Gilloise in Belgian league play this season.
Of all of Canada’s strikers, Promise David feels the most inevitable. At the team’s May training camp, he brazenly foretold that he would score in Vancouver, although he didn’t specify whether it would be against Qatar this week or Switzerland the next.
“I’m happy for Cyle,” David said after their shared success against Bosnia-Herzegovina. “And for me, it just felt good to be able to come into that game and be a goal threat, put the defence back, be a problem. With me and Cyle up top, it felt like twin tower ball.”
It looked like it, too. David’s knock is that he doesn’t have the stamina that Marsch’s relentless style demands, and he’s only recently recovered from a ruptured hip tendon besides.
But maybe it’s time — maybe there are 45 good minutes — when Canada’s oldest and youngest forwards can show what they might do together.
Maybe they won’t be denied.
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