If the United 2026 bid is greenlit by the FIFA congress, 13-year-old Canadian boys can start dreaming about playing in a World Cup on home soil.

An eight-year campaign to promote soccer in Canada can begin, perhaps cracking the global consciousness and the upper echelon of professional sport in this country, where hockey reigns supreme.

And the men’s national team, ranked No. 79 in the world and with a lone World Cup appearance to its name 32 years ago, will finally have a major tournament to work toward.

Those are the hopes of the Canadian soccer community as decision day looms.

It’s United 2026 — a joint bid by the United States, Mexico and Canada — versus Morocco for the right to host the World Cup in eight years, with the winner to be announced in Moscow around the time Canadians are waking up on Wednesday morning.

Participation rates are already high. There were about 834,363 registered soccer players, coaches and referees in Canada in 2017, according to a report by the Canadian Soccer Association. But alongside the prospect of hosting the sport’s biggest tournament, a desire to move soccer closer to the mainstream has emerged, with emphasis on what that growth could do for the game for generations to come.

Soccer has made a lot of progress in Canada with three Major League Soccer teams, a thriving women’s national program and the emergence of the Canadian Premier League on the horizon. But it’s still a young sport here, said Richard Legendre, executive vice-president of soccer operations with the Montreal Impact.

“(The World Cup) could be an accelerator,” he said last week.

There’s a big difference between how MLS is perceived around the world today compared with six years ago, when the Impact began, Legendre added. Clubs are acquiring more talent from Europe, South and Central America, for example. The quality of play has improved and with it the perception of soccer in North America, which hosting a World Cup could take to another level.

“It reminds me a little bit of all the movements … when you hold the Olympics at home,” he said. “There’s a great rally behind developing players at home. It’s almost as important as the promotional side. To develop international players, it doesn’t happen overnight. There’s no magic, in any sport.”

Toronto FC president Bill Manning considers soccer a “great unifier,” bringing Canadians together around the game like the Women’s World Cup did here in 2015.

“I think as soccer continues to proliferate in Canada, having the World Cup and kids seeing players playing at the highest level in the world that are kids here from the GTA, they can be role models,” Manning said. “For me, that’s what it’s all about.

“I’m sure in hockey you have that, kids that looked up to a Wayne Gretzky or even a Brendan (Shanahan) when he was playing. They aspire to that and they can identify because they’re local guys. I think that’s what you’ll see as well with Canada.”

Pathways to the pros already exist, such as MLS academies, but Manning believes a World Cup would “amplify everything, which can only help the sport in this country.”

Shaun Hammond, president of Alberta Soccer, said just the notion of bringing a tournament of this stature to Canada inspires kids to stay in the game and want to be a part of it.

“I think it will change a lot of attitudes were we to get this kind of tournament here, this kind of exposure,” Hammond said. “I think people will start taking a lot of notice.”

But for all the optimism, Simon Darnell, an assistant professor in kinesiology and physical education at the University of Toronto, finds the question of what the World Cup would do for soccer in Canada a bit mystifying.

Grassroots participation is already very strong, says Darnell, who studies how sports fits into society and culture. He adds research shows that while hosting major events and having famous athletes play in your country may lead to a spike in interest in a sport, it doesn’t necessarily translate into increased participation.

Instead, much of what sports mean in Canada is driven by elite performance, he says, pointing to the Own the Podium program for the Olympics. While Canadians have had success at the Games, the project also feeds a sense that sport doesn’t mean anything unless athletes are winning at the highest level.

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“I think there’s a sense among Canadian soccer (stakeholders) that they’re kind of desperate to play with the big boys, to actually be in the big tournament,” Darnell said. “In this line of thinking, it’s not enough potentially to have a real grassroots soccer culture in this country.”

Which leaves Darnell with what he calls the “most cynical” benefit of Canada’s role in the bid: that it might be the only way for the Canadian men, as co-hosts, to get back into the tournament in the foreseeable future.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if that, at some level, is playing a role here,” he said. “I think with the Canadian Soccer Association, it would force them to actually develop a team that would have to be able to play in the tournament. We don’t see many signs that that’s going to happen otherwise.”

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