As the world prepares to celebrate soccer’s biggest party, Canada’s men’s team is again resigned to watching the World Cup on television.

But away from the flashy stadiums and corporate parties in Brazil, a feisty team sporting the maple leaf has found improbable success on the rough-and-tumble pitches of Uruguay. Initially dismissed as a pipe dream, Canadian Soccer Club is slowly scaling the soccer pyramid in a nation that worships the sport.

Canadian S.C. is the brainchild of Gustavo Urraburu, 55, and Fernando Aldao, 52, two Uruguayan transplants in Toronto. They arrived in 1988 and started a commercial cleaning business, but the two former professional players often spoke about turning their entrepreneurial focus toward owning their own soccer club. In 2007, the pair began soliciting officials in Uruguay with the idea of entering a club in the country’s amateur division. However, competition to enter such teams is fierce, and league administrators were cool to the idea of a club whose proposed name and owners came from a foreign land.

After all, in Uruguay it’s called futbol, not soccer.

“The name (Canadian S.C.) is a way to show gratitude to this country,” says Urraburu. “It’s funny but if the name was something else we probably would have had fewer problems.”

The league’s then-president told Urraburu that “not even if you send us $1 million are you going to be able to play in this league with a name like that.”

It took four years of pestering, but eventually the pair used their connections from their playing days to convince officials they were serious about fielding a team. In 2011, Canadian S.C. was granted entry to the bottom of Uruguay’s football structure.

“I remember they eventually said to us, ‘All we ask is that you don’t lose every game 10-0,’” Urraburu says with a laugh.

It was a rocky start: only one player, a U.S. citizen living in Uruguay, showed up to the first tryout. The fans consisted of players’ families, with Aldao’s mother sewing together the first Canadian flag for supporters to wave at games.

“Of course it was not maybe the most accurate Canadian flag, but she was the first one to make it,” says Aldao.

But the on-field results came. The club won its first-ever game in October 2011 by a score of 2-1 over a team called Basanez. That season, Canadian S.C. would advance to and lose the amateur division championship. They next year they returned to the final and won. After only two seasons, Canadian S.C. was promoted to Uruguay’s B division, which consists of professional teams. The locals took notice, and the team’s coaching staff was invited to celebrate at the Canadian embassy in the capital, Montevideo.

Outside the top few pro teams in Uruguay, most clubs operate on bare-bones budgets by North American standards. Canadian S.C. is based in Montevideo but does not have a home stadium or even its own training complex. It rents such facilities for each game, but it is slowly building the traditions of its rivals, who boast decades of existence. It has its own fan club, called “La Banda del Norte ” — supporters wear Canada-themed gear to matches — and, like most South American clubs, a complement of youth teams.

Urraburu and Aldao say the club is mostly financed through television money and corporate sponsors. And while running a soccer club from 9,000 kilometres away requires hours of Internet-based phone conversations, it also gives Urraburu and Aldao the opportunity to improve soccer in their adopted country. Aldao says four Canadians have trained with the club, including 21-year-old defender Andres Fresenga of the Ottawa Fury and Canada’s Under-23 squad, but the goal is to turn that trickle into a torrent.

The first Canadian to play for the team was Toronto’s Ryan Zamora, 22, currently a goalkeeper for the Uruguayan club El Tanque Sisley. He played two games for the club in 2012 and says it felt kind of weird “going to another country but feeling like you’re still repping Canada.”

He says Uruguay can be a culture shock for Canadians, due to rustic facilities and a cutthroat playing style. But he was quick to add that the experience accelerated his development.

“It’s another world,” says Zamora. “Uruguayans play with balls and heart and like every game is their last.”

The club missed the playoffs in its first season in the B division, but its founders dream of seeing their club in prestigious South American competitions like the Copa Libertadores. More immediately, the pair want a permanent training complex, some Canadian sponsors and language teachers to help young players study French and English.

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Of course, the owners also hope their club will help Canada’s national team return to the World Cup for the first time since 1986.

“In Uruguay people are thinking about soccer every day, like hockey in Canada,” says Aldao. “If we send Canadian players to learn in this environment, they are definitely going to help (Canada’s) national team.”