TEAM GUIDE-GROUP B : Group B is wide open although Swiss pedigree could win the day

Enter your email below and we'll send you a one-time pin to log in.

Canada The plan As co-hosts, placed inside a competitive group, Canada enter the World Cup with high expectations, despite having never won a match at the tournament. Since a Concacaf Nations League semifinal defeat to Mexico in March 2025, the team has lost just one of 15 matches at the time of writing, a run that has included some excellent opponents such as Colombia, Ecuador, Ukraine and the USA, whom they have defeated twice in the past two years, including their first win on American soil in 57 years.

Coach Jesse Marsch has maintained a consistent 4-4-2 shape throughout, with the emphasis on pressing from the front and pace in wide positions. “Some teams press to win the ball back, we press to punish and think about scoring immediately when we recover the ball,” said Marsch, who may be American but has captured the hearts of many Canadians since he took the job in May 2024 and guided the team to the semifinals of Copa América.

Success at that tournament, and subsequently since in friendlies, is based on a defensive structure that Marsch worked on immediately when taking the job and playing against Netherlands and France in his first two matches in charge. Nine clean sheets in 13 matches before the pre-tournament friendlies is even more impressive when you factor in that Moïse Bombito, their star centre-back from Nice, and Bayern Munich’s Alphonso Davies did not play a single minute in any of those matches because of injury.

“In my first year in charge we developed the playing style, and it’s clear we are more of a complete team with Moïse and Alphonso,” Marsch says. “The last year has been about developing the overall mentality to make sure when the lights are the brightest we will be ready to host World Cup games, and I think this team is special and can handle that.”

Jesse Marsch’s first venture into the world of international management has been successful, but not one he found easy to adjust to. “From the moment I worked with this group of players in the first camp, I knew I was going to fall in love with these guys,” he says. “They are a unique group of really good people, who are very talented, and when I said goodbye to them, it was different from what I was used to as a head coach in the club game.” Marsch has enjoyed those gaps in his schedule, using time to visit Canadian players across the world and spend a lot of time across the country at the provincial level to help bring a more united approach to the way the game is developed and governed.

Captain Alphonso Davie