Liam Millar’s resolve to return from injury might prove a lodestar for wobbly Canadian World Cup squad
Listen to this article
Estimated 5 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Every team has an unlikely leader — not the best player, and not the biggest personality, but a player whose presence speaks to something larger about the game and its possibilities. Some players lead by being part of the team at all.
For Canada’s men, that player might be Liam Millar.
In Oct. 2024, in a game with his English side Hull, Millar took an inside step and heard a crack in his knee. He didn’t feel any pain. He wasn’t even sure he’d hurt himself. Only the sound gave him pause. He’d broken his arm before, and it had made a similar sound. He wondered if he’d somehow broken his leg.
The team’s physiotherapists came onto the field, and they ran through their tests. Millar still felt no pain. Maybe his knee had just cracked like knuckles.
He stayed in the game but soon realized that something was more deeply wrong. His kneecap felt loose, as though it had lost its anchor. “The weirdest sensation I’ve ever had,” he said.
He came out. The physios told him that an injury like his — a potential injury, at that point — will diagnose itself. Knees are self-barometers. Millar drove home without difficulty. He went downstairs to his kitchen to get a bite and ran back up the stairs to test himself. He still felt fine.
“I thought I might be okay,” he said.
Canada and Ireland play to a 2-2 draw in an international friendly at BMO Field in Toronto.
He went to bed and slept for a few hours before he woke up at 3 a.m., his knee painful and swollen. He regarded it in the semidarkness and knew: He’d torn his ACL, the nightmare injury for soccer players, especially for the workhorses and ground coverers, for players like Liam Millar.
“Sometimes you just take a step, and everything changes,” he said.
He allowed himself a few tears and then made a private resolution to come back stronger. “I didn’t want to be one of those guys who had a decent career, did his knee, and then wasn’t the same. I wasn’t going to let it be an excuse for me.”
Some athletes reach their pinnacles because of their physical gifts: they’re tall, they’re fast, they’re dynamic. Other athletes outperform their bodies because of their mental reserves. They achieve more than they might have because they push themselves past their physical limitations.
Millar is an exemplar of that form. But his knee proved resistant to his usual ideas of self-determination. Four months into his rehabilitation, he hit a wall. His world, he said, became blurry, as though he saw everything through a lens clouded by fear and doubt. “My physical body was here,” he said, “but my brain was always somewhere else.”
The love and support of his wife and children, his coach Jesse Marsch, and certain teammates like Theo Bair, helped him find a new clarity. Now Millar’s back playing the game he adores, and in his way — steely, wry, profane — might prove a lodestar for the wobbly national team.
After reaching unimaginable heights in September, when back-to-back wins in Europe over Romania and Wales lifted Canada to 26th in the world, the men have struggled through a spate of injuries, red cards, and uneven results. Saturday’s worrisome draw against 75th-ranked Iceland felt like a bottoming out for a side that has slipped to 30th with only three games to play, including Tuesday against Tunisia in Toronto, before it co-hosts the World Cup.
Excitement for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Toronto is growing as BMO Field hosts two friendly matches this weekend. Canada’s national men’s soccer team is first up, facing off against Iceland Saturday afternoon. CBC’s Naama Weingarten has more on how people in the city are preparing to celebrate the World Cup’s arrival in June.
“We’ve never focused on who’s not here,” Marsch said Monday. “We’ve always focused on who’s here.”
Millar is here, and after coming on as a substitute against Iceland, he’ll likely start the elevated friendly against Tunisia. He knows, and better than most, what it will take to get through these stumbles. The solution might not be the obvious one. It might not be anger or determination or sacrifice.
Maybe it’s gratitude. Maybe it’s joy.
“I feel like before my injury, I didn’t take full advantage of soccer sometimes,” Millar said. “There were little things that I could get frustrated with, annoyed with. Then I was out of the game for a year, you know? Everything that had felt like such a big deal at the time, these little things that really had no significance in my life, I realized how stupid I was being.
“When I was away, the guys are what I missed the most. I feel like I always appreciated it. But I appreciate it much more now.”
A home World Cup beckons. There are worries and challenges ahead, because of course there are: Human beings, like their knees, are imperfect instruments. But it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these players, and likely for all Canadians. It’s time to remember, the way Liam Millar does every time he puts on his boots, how good it feels to feel lucky.
Source link
