Canada will play their first World Cup fixture in 36 years

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Canada will play their first World Cup fixture in 36 years when they face Belgium at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium on Wednesday. For Belgium, this represents the final chance for a lot of their ‘Golden Generation’ to win a major tournament.

Belgium’s latest ‘golden generation’ are fast running out of time to claim international glory together, so they’ll hope Friday’s 2-1 friendly defeat to Egypt isn’t a sign of things to come. After finishing third in the 2018 World Cup, Belgium must improve on that Egypt display or they risk going three matches without a win for the first time since March 2014 after an underwhelming UEFA Nations League campaign (W3, D1, L2).

Rekindling the form that saw them stroll through their World Cup qualifying group unbeaten (W6, D2) would be the ideal way to start their World Cup group stage campaign as they prepare for only their second ever meeting with Canada after a 2-0 friendly victory back in 1989. A repeat result would be welcomed by Belgium boss Roberto Martínez and it would also wrap up a hat-trick of World Cup group-opening victories for the Red Devils.

While Belgium are seasoned tournament campaigners with expectations of reaching the latter stages, Canada are returning to international football’s biggest stage for the first time since 1986 as huge underdogs. Topping the CONCACAF final qualification group ahead of Mexico and USA (W8, D4, L2) shows John Herdman’s side deserve to be taken seriously and they’ll be looking to put down a marker ahead of their country co-hosting the tournament in 2026.

Canada produced their best performances during that final stage of qualifying at home, only beating lowly Honduras and El Salvador on the road (D3, L2), hinting that they may struggle in unfamiliar surroundings. Finetuning their preparations by drawing 2-2 with Bahrain and beating Japan 2-1 not far from here should therefore boost morale following four consecutive defeats on foreign soil.

Date: 23/11/2022
Time: 22:00
Venue: Ahmad bin Ali Stadium (Al Rayyan)
Pick for this match:
“1” – @ 1.42 ( BETWAY )