PREVIEW: Canada to face Bosnia and Herzegovina in historic World Cup opener on home soil | OneFootball

Co-hosts Canada welcome Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Toronto Stadium tomorrow evening for their opening World Cup fixture, as they look to get off to a dream start in Group B.

It will mark the first men’s FIFA World Cup match hosted on Canadian soil, with the country also staging its own opening ceremony, headlined by Michael Bublé.

Alongside co-hosts the United States and Mexico, Canada automatically qualified for the World Cup, while opponents Bosnia secured their place after upsetting Italy on penalties to reach their second World Cup.

Canada will make their third appearance at the World Cup, having previously qualified for Mexico 1986 and Qatar in 2022.

It will be the first time that Canada have qualified for back-to-back World Cup tournaments, following their last appearance four years ago.

Canada have ever only scored twice at a World Cup, once through an own goal against Morocco and one against Croatia at Qatar 2022.

The hosts have lost their last six World Cup matches, but head into the 2026 tournament unbeaten in their last eight games, having built a strong defensive record that includes six clean sheets.

Jesse Marsch’s men will go into the match against Bosnia hoping to secure a victory on home turf in front of their home supporters tomorrow.

Alphonso Davies will be a doubt for Canada due to a hamstring injury, while Jayden Nelson has been called up as a replacement for Marcelo Flores, who has been ruled out after suffering an ACL injury.

Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina head into the match unbeaten in their last six games in all competitions.

But they will be searching for their first win against CONCACAF side since a 1-0 friendly win over Mexico in Chicago in 2014.

Bosnia came close to progressing past the group stage at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil but missed out by a single point to Nigeria.

In that campaign they won one match and lost twice in the Group stage.

In recent matches Sergej Barbarez’s men ended their recent friendlies 0-0 and 1-1 against North Macedonia and Panama.

It will be the first ever time that Bosnia and Herzegovina have faced Canada at a FIFA World Cup, although the two sides have met twice previously in other competitions.

Those meetings ended with one win for Bosnia and one draw, with their most recent encounter taking place seven years ago.

The match will kick off at 3pm local time in Toronto, people viewing in the UK can watch the match at 8pm and will be shown on the BBC in the UK, Fox/Fox one in the US and TSN/CTV/Crave in Canada.