Cyle Larin Needed 121 Seconds to Rescue Canada in 2026
Cyle Larin had been on the field for barely two minutes when the ball reached him on the run, a marker draped across his back, the goal still thirteen yards away and closing fast. He did not break stride. He drove through the contact, let the ball squirt off Nikola Katic’s outstretched leg, and watched it die in the bottom right corner. Toronto, already loud, found another gear entirely.
Canada drew 1-1 with Bosnia-Herzegovina at BMO Field in Toronto on June 13, 2026, in their second Group B match at the World Cup. Larin scored the equalizer in the 78th minute, just over two minutes after replacing Tani Oluwaseyi, to cancel out Jovo Lukic’s first-half header for Bosnia.
Larin scored Canada’s equalizer in the 78th minute, only 121 seconds after coming off the bench. Lukic had given Bosnia the lead in the 21st minute with a header from a corner. The result was the co-hosts’ first ever point at a World Cup.
Canada had spent long stretches of the second half pressing without reward. Jacob Shaffelburg’s cross had picked out Oluwaseyi’s header on the line, only for Ermedin Demirovic to head it clear. Richie Laryea had seen a low drive deflect up onto the crossbar off Sead Kolasinac, the kind of moment that makes a team start to wonder whether the night belongs to someone else.
It did not.
Ismael Kone drove forward through midfield, found Promise David with a pass around the corner, and David flicked it into Larin’s path without breaking his own run. Larin took one touch to set himself, shrugged off his marker, and finished low into the corner with a calm that belied how little time he had been given to find it. The crowd, packed with Canadian celebrities and 43,000 home fans, erupted.
This was only the second World Cup goal in Canadian men’s history. The program had lost all three matches at its only previous appearance, back in 1986, and went winless again four years ago in Qatar. Larin’s introduction, replacing Oluwaseyi in the 76th minute, was the kind of substitution that looks routine right up until it changes everything.
He did not even need a full shift to do it. Two minutes were enough, and Canada will take the same arrangement again if it is offered.