“Bittersweet moment” as Canada held to draw in World Cup opener, says de Fougerolles | OneFootball

Luc de Fougerolles labelled Canada’s 1-1 draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina as “one of the best moments of my life”, but accepted that a draw was “bittersweet” given the Canucks’ much-improved second half performance at the Toronto Stadium.

Jovo Lukic’s first-ever senior international goal had handed Bosnia an early lead when he nodded home from a corner with 21 minutes on the clock in Toronto, although Jesse Marsch’s decision to bring Cyle Larin off the bench paid dividends when the Southampton forward equalised just two minutes into his cameo appearance.

Speaking in the mixed zone after the match, Canadian defender Luc de Fougerolles admitted that “it’s a bittersweet moment” because “if you look at the game as a whole, we had the better chances and we could have won the game.

“A first-ever [FIFA World Cup] point for Canada is something to take forward,” he explained, adding that “it’s a point on the board, we move on to Qatar and hopefully we’ll get three points there to put us in a good position to get out of the group.”

The 20-year-old, who plays his club football in Belgium for FCV Dender, explained that walking out at the Toronto Stadium to the “roar of the crowd was one of the best moments of my life, to be honest with you.

“It was a dream come true moment,” he added, but accepted that after a sluggish start, “as a team we’ll see what we can do better” next time out.

Canada were much improved after the break and finally restored parity just two minutes after Larin’s introduction as a substitute.

De Fougerolles admitted that “obviously we wanted to push to get the second goal as well, so I don’t think we could celebrate it as we would have wanted to.

“We wanted to get the game going because I think we had the momentum at that point in time, so I think it was joy but also hunger to want to get the next one and win the game.

“It was unfortunate that we couldn’t do that, but it was a nice moment for the whole team and for Kyle especially.

“I think this week in training, we can fine-tune the finishing so that next week if we create those chances, we’ll take more of them and win the game. I think it’s positive that we created the chances; the next step is just to finish them off and kill the game.”

Having picked up their first-ever FIFA World Cup point, Canada now turn their attention to their meeting with Qatar in Vancouver next Thursday, 18th of June.