Canada enter Gold Cup with clear objective: "We want to win it" | OneFootball

By Ben Steiner

With a year to go until the 2026 FIFA World Cup in North America, the importance of this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup isn’t lost on the Canadian men’s national team.

The tournament presents the final competitive games for head coach Jesse Marsch’s squad ahead of kicking off the World Cup next June at Toronto FC’s BMO Field and allows the CanMNT to come together with their top players – besides the injured Alphonso Davies and Moïse Bombito – as they seek the program's first trophy since the 2000 Gold Cup.

That opportunity begins Tuesday with a Group B opener against Honduras at BC Place (10 pm ET | TSN, FS1), home of Vancouver Whitecaps FC, before relocating to Houston Dynamo FC's Shell Energy Stadium for the remaining group stage matches against Curaçao and El Salvador.

“Everybody knows how important this summer is and what it means for the World Cup,” Marsch said.

"I’ve explained my feelings about this tournament to the team over the last months, but I didn’t really have to. They all said, ‘We’re coming, we want to win it.’ That’s a big statement, but that’s how they feel. I’m glad I coach a team that feels that way.”

High standards

Canada enter this formative tournament off the back of an intense week, having beaten Ukraine 4-2 before holding the reigning AFCON champion, Ivory Coast, to a scoreless draw, to win the inaugural Canadian Shield Tournament title.

Those games brought Canada to a challenging level, allowing Marsch to experiment with new players.

Among them were Whitecaps attacker Jayden Nelson, CF Montréal midfielder Nathan Saliba and standout 21-year-old striker Promise David, who recently helped Royale Union Saint-Gilloise end a 90-year title drought in Belgium’s top flight.

“Those games gave us a little bit of an insight into the different things that can be presented to you from different regions of the world, but there are some similarities between the Ivory Coast and Honduras,” said Marsch, whose squad includes 12 MLS players.

“Both are very strong, athletic teams, so we're going to have to be prepared for a really tough game against Honduras and all our Gold Cup opponents.”

For the players, the extended summer window offers an opportunity not only to gel with one another a year out from the most significant moment in Canadian soccer history, but also to earn their spot on the World Cup squad.

“I've seen Canada at its low point, I've seen them at their highs, and I feel like I'm one of those guys who really knows what it takes and the passion that there is within the group,” Nelson told MLSsoccer.com, having earned his first call-up since the 2023 Gold Cup.

“I've been a guy that's been in and out of the national team, and now I feel like it's time to say, 'I'm here now and I don't want to be in and out anymore.'”

Navigating a tournament

Although winning a Gold Cup entices Canada, so does the tournament experience it provides – ranging from travel to preparing for a variety of different opponents.

Last summer, they learned to win in high-pressure moments through a Copa América semifinal run, which included results against Chile, Peru and Venezuela, before falling to Lionel Messi-led Argentina.

From each test, learning moments surface.

“The longer that we can be together, the more that we can establish and continue to push the whole group. There are some faces that are here now that weren't here last summer, like Jayden Nelson, Promise David and Daniel Jebbison,” said Marsch, who is serving a two-match suspension to start the tournament.

“It's just about trying to find which combination of guys are the right guys for the right moment and the right kind of opponent.”

Meanwhile, Canada have also replicated what next summer will look like, shifting cities midsummer to Vancouver, where they will play two World Cup group games and potentially Round of 32 and Round of 16 matches.

“We've been in Toronto enough that we know kind of what the training environment is and the experience, and now we'll have this here in Vancouver,” Marsch said.

“We're even staying at the hotel that we'll be staying at next summer, so the experience and all of these things are preparing us the right way for what we'll need next year.”

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