EDMONTON

There are few more proud Canadians this Canada Day than Victor Montagliani as he flies from Tuesday's semifinal in Montreal to Wednesday's in Edmonton.

With a $90 million budget for the FIFA Women's World Cup, an organization that not long ago had to come to the Alberta Soccer Association twice a year to borrow money to make payroll, is going to make a significant profit.

Most importantly, the event made an impression — a massive impression — at home and around the world.

Montagliani and his organizing committee headed by Peter Montopoli put Canada up there with the giants in playing host to a successful major international soccer event and did it with a five-time zone tournament.

The president of the Canadian Soccer Association says he doesn't totally feel like Victor Victorious headed here.

"I always consider myself a footballer at heart and we just got knocked out, so that still stings," he said.

It'll be a bit of an empty feeling to go to Commonwealth Stadium and not experience Canada Day with Canada still in the tournament, as was the grand plan. But he'll take in the England-Japan game with a special pride.

"Our team and this event transcended gender and those numbers prove it," said the 49-year-old owner of an insurance company from Vancouver.

"A lot of my colleagues from various parts of the world walk into a stadium to watch women's football before 54,000 and they're just awestruck because in their country it wouldn't draw 54 people, never mind 54,000. We should all be proud of that."

The event also managed to do the near impossible, putting soccer in the spotlight instead of the ugly mess of arrests from the vote-buying bribes and other criminal charges involving top FIFA officials.

"I said it at the start of this that this tournament was going to do that, to let some positive sunlight through the dark clouds and I think it has," Montagliani said.

"When you look at this tournament, we did pretty much what we said we would do. We broke the previous attendance records for the Women's World Cup and any FIFA event other than the men's World Cup. And to have the TV numbers up there with the Stanley Cup final, who would have ever dreamed that a women's soccer game would even come close to a Stanley Cup playoff game? That's almost blasphemy in our country. But it happened.

"The real pride to me, and I think it's been true with everyone involved, is just walking around the streets and around the stadiums in all the cities and just experiencing the real buzz that this World Cup has brought.

"It's been about seeing not only traditional soccer fans but also grandfather and grandmothers with their granddaughters. I especially got a kick out of seeing adult males walking around with 'SINCLAIR' or 'TANCREDI' on the back of the Canadian shirts they were wearing. That's unbelievable, right?

"You could just see it and feel it. It was oozing everywhere.

"I think the best moments were when you see the games through the eyes of a young girl and I got the opportunity to do that through the eyes of my 14-year-old daughter Collette, who was at a few games with me.

"When you see the game through the eyes of a 14-year-old girl, it kind of puts everything in perspective. Their eyes light up. They're watching women's football and they're saying 'That could be me one day.'"

Montagliani is going to lead a Canadian bid for the 2026 men's World Cup or pitch Canadian cities to share a replacement bid for Qatar with the Americans. That's the obvious next big thing. But there's also a different 'next' he believes to be Job 1 when this is over.

"The 'next' has to be about taking care of our own business. It's building on some of the changes we've already made in the player development model. We need to make that better so we can have better players and can consistently go to and be competitive at World Cups.

"Governance areas and revenue generation are really the next steps. We have to continue to put building blocks in place. If you take care of your own house other things will take care of themselves."

He said that includes the men's program -- especially the men's program. Canada is currently ranked 109th in the world behind Oman (101), Faroe Islands (102), Jordan (103), Antigua and Barbuda (104), Nambia (105), Bahrain (106), Cuba (107) and Sudan (108).

"It's going to be months before the accountants do their due diligence and we get a final handle on all our expenses with FIFA and everything. We know we're going to be in a profit situation but to what extent it's going to take time to totally find out.

"Whatever it is, it has to be about reinvestment into the game both at a grass roots level and at a high performance level. And that will be what we'll be looking to do here."

Twitter: @sunterryjones

Email: terry.jones@sunmedia.ca