As the World Cup kicks off in Russia, out come the car flags in Toronto.

Soccer fans all over the city will show their national pride by affixing their team’s flags to their cars over the next month, an ocean away from the greatest showcase of the Beautiful Game but far from disconnected to the hype surrounding the tournament.

About half of the city’s population was born outside of Canada and more than three in four Torontonians are either immigrants or children of immigrants, according to a recent study by the Mowat Centre at the University of Toronto.

Statistically speaking, the British flag should be the most prominent. According to the 2016 Census, 331,895 Torontonians can trace their ethnic origins back to England. On the other end of the spectrum, only 365 people in the city trace their roots back to Senegal.

But the red and white of the Three Lions aren’t necessarily the colours local merchants catering to the World Cup crowd expect will dominate between now and mid-July. It doesn’t take a large immigrant population to make noise in this city, according to Rocco Mastrangelo, co-owner and general manager of Café Diplomatico, a well-known College St. hub for soccer fans during such international tournaments and whose tag line is “where nations unite.”

“Portugal, for sure. Argentina, Spain. Mexicans are going to be coming out in droves. We have a lot of German fans. But Portugal and Brazil are probably the top two,” he said.







Toronto’s Portuguese community dwarfs Brazil’s. With a little more than 100,000 people in the city having origins there, Portugal sits behind just England and Germany on the list, according to the census data. Spain is somewhere in the middle, with some 56,000 Torontonians hailing from the country that delivers La Roja.

Bryce Johnson, a manager at L&M Taylor Soccer on Yonge St., sees many of his customers supporting the same squads, with a few exceptions.

“For us, it’s been a lot of Germany, I’ve been seeing a lot of Brazil as well go. Spain’s been a really particular one as well, Colombia,” Johnson said. “We also have a lot of requests for Egypt and Peru, but we can’t get that in Canada, unfortunately. We sold out of Serbia really quickly, too. Serbia was quite a surprise.”

While only 2,305 locals trace their ethnic origins to Iceland, the smallest country to ever play in the World Cup, the underdog team is expected to garner a wave of support not just from Toronto but from Canada as a whole. Recent research by Inspired by Iceland, the country’s official tourist site, found 22 per cent of Canadians were planning on supporting the country at its first World Cup. In a short video appealing for Canada’s support, Icelandic comedians Anna Svava Knutsdottir and Steindi Jr. played on the two countries’ shared reputations for politeness as a reason to get behind the dark horse, even throwing in Canadians’ famous “Eh?” for good measure.

Every country participating in the World Cup is represented somewhere in Toronto. The Mowat Centre study, on where to go in Toronto to watch the World Cup, found that 26 of the 32 countries playing in the tournament have representation in at least half of Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods. The least widespread ancestry, Serbia, is represented in 25 neighbourhoods. No neighbourhood has all 32 participating countries represented among its residents, though four neighbourhoods do have representation from 31 countries, and no neighbourhood has fewer than 16 participating countries represented.

While the strip of College St. near the Diplomatico is usually referred to as Little Italy, for this tournament, it could be known as Little Reykjavik: It’s the Toronto neighbourhood with the highest proportion of people with Icelandic backgrounds.

There are about 182,000 Torontonians with ethnics origins in Italy, second only to England. Despite Italy’s failure to qualify for the first time since 1958, Mastrangelo doesn’t expect the team’s fans to shun the tournament altogether.

“There’s definitely Italians watching soccer,” he said. “A true soccer fan is a true soccer fan. They’re not necessarily cheering for another nation to win, but they’re definitely going to games.”

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On Thursday, he said, his restaurant was surprisingly full for the tournament’s opener between host Russia and Saudi Arabia, a game not widely considered a must-see. That trend continued on Friday with three games; the must-see afternoon game between Spain and Portugal filled the 450-seat restaurant.

Some countries may be better represented than others in this city over the next month, but Mastrangelo expects to see fans from all of 32 participating countries walk through his door, as well as fans who have yet to devote themselves to one nation.

“Even people that don’t watch soccer come out to watch World Cup soccer,” he said. “The atmosphere’s electric, people have just been enjoying themselves, the weather’s been perfect so we can’t ask for anything better.”