Eustaquio’s foot delivers late strike for Canada’s first World Cup knockout win
The tension kept building between two teams making their first appearance in a World Cup knockout match. With no goals on the scoreboard, the minutes ticked down with extra time looming.
Then Stephen Eustaquio scored in the second minute of second-half stoppage time, and Canada beat South Africa 1-0 on Sunday. “I shot with everything I had,” Eustaquio said.
The party was on, for red-clad fans in the stands at SoFi Stadium and at watch parties across Canada, one of three World Cup hosts. “Overall, it’s pretty much a perfect knockout performance,” right back Alistair Johnston said. Hockey dominates Canada in the winter months. Now, summer belongs to the men’s national soccer team.
The country’s previous best men’s international result was winning CONCACAF Gold Cup championships in 1985 and 2000. The women’s Olympic team won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
“For Canadian sports history, it’s going to be a moment where you’re going to kind of know where you were when that moment happened,” Johnston said. “That’s something that is not lost on us. We know that not only are we writing history in Canadian soccer, but in Canadian sport, and that’s a magical thing.”
Just when it looked like 30 minutes of extra time was coming, Johnston’s pass to the right side was cleared to the edge of the box and found Eustaquio, who drilled a clean strike into the bottom corner.
