With apologies to Sportsnet, BC Place Stadium will be Soccer Central next Friday, when a most stunning convergence happens: The formerly irrelevant Canadian men’s national soccer team and a crowd potentially as big as 50,000.

Are pigs flying out of Fraser Valley barnyards? Did hell freeze over?

FIFA’s No. 87-ranked team, a squad laughably eliminated from 2014 World Cup qualifying after being routed 8-1 in Honduras, a side that has been the snivelling little brother to our country’s popular women’s team, is suddenly hip again. Three decades after its only World Cup appearance and following years spent foundering in a goal-starved wilderness, people are paying attention.

In perhaps its best position since 1986 to make it to “The Hex” — CONCACAF’s final stage of 2018 World Cup qualifying — Canada will face the region’s long-dominant power, Mexico. A win and Canada can take control of the current, four-country round — Honduras and El Salvador are also involved — and be in a solid position to be one of the two countries to advance to the six-country Hex. The top three there qualify for Russia 2018.

“This game is of great importance for the future of Canadian soccer,” veteran midfielder Julian de Guzman said Friday on a conference call. “To hear the astronomical numbers for a men’s national team game, it brings goose bumps.

“This game can change the perception of Canadian football … and it’s very motivating for ourselves.”

It won’t be easy against a Mexican side ranked No. 22 in the world.

But while Mexico usually dispatches Canada with little difficulty at home, the Mexicans have only drawn with the red-and-white in Canada each of the last three times they’ve played a home-and-home in World Cup qualifying — 2-2 in Edmonton in 1997, 0-0 in Toronto in 2000 and 2-2 in Edmonton in 2008.

Those games, by the way, drew crowds of 11,806 and 14,145 in Edmonton’s 60,000-seat Commonwealth Stadium and 6,456 at Varsity Stadium in Toronto.

So how do you explain the sudden buzz for a squad that includes starters who play in relative obscurity in China, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria and Norway? And a squad that has been supplemented in the last six months by a few Johnnys-come-lately to their Canadian heritage?

The 20,108 who watched Canada defeat Honduras 1-0 at BC Place last November was a nice surprise, a record for a men’s national team game in B.C. On Thursday, officials announced that more than 46,000 tickets had been sold for the game against Mexico and the 50,000 mark was within reach.

“I’m not really surprised, I’ve got to be honest,” insists Victor Montagliani, CEO of Canada Soccer. “I know that the program has been building. Mexico is definitely a top-class opponent, but the last time we played Mexico in Canada the most we got was 17,000 (sic).

“The fact we’re getting close to 50,000 is a sign of where the game has come in this country. Soccer is beyond mainstream, it’s part of the fibre of Canadian sport. And it’s a sign of the program heading in the right direction.”

A big crowd will also mean a healthy boost for Canada Soccer’s coffers.