Stephen Eustáquio proud of Canada's World Cup run despite Round of 16 loss to Morocco
The Leamington native wore the captain's armband and scored Canada's signature moment in the tournament. He says the team gave everything and proved Canada is finally a soccer country.
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Stephen Eustáquio was gutted to see Canada eliminated from the FIFA World Cup on Saturday, but he left Houston with pride intact.
Wearing the captain's armband in place of injured Alphonso Davies, the 29-year-old Leamington native had an outstanding tournament. He gave Canada its signature World Cup moment with his goal in the Round of 32 against South Africa — a historic achievement for the men's program.
Canada played well in Saturday's Round of 16 loss to No. 6 ranked Morocco, particularly in the first half. "I'm very proud. I think we did an amazing tournament," Eustáquio told TSN post-match. "To be honest, until the halftime of this game, we were outstanding. I think everybody back home should be very proud. We felt like we could have won this game, especially in the first half. We were on top of them. We were fighting. We were creating chances."
Nine years ago, Canada was ranked 120th in the world and most sports fans couldn't name a single player on the team. That changed dramatically during this tournament. Massive fan marches in Vancouver and Toronto, enormous watch parties across the country, and thousands of fans making expensive trips to Los Angeles and Houston to cheer Canada on proved the shift.
"We felt always the love back home from the Canadians. I think we're finally a soccer country," Eustáquio said. "We need this support to go forward. We're going to enter another cycle of four years. The youngsters here, they need your guys' support throughout the four years so that we make sure that we can go even further in the next World Cup."
