More than a goal: Eustáquio became Canada's hero after loss | OneFootball

When the ball left Stephen Eustáquio’s right foot, already beyond the 90th minute, Canada reached the World Cup round of 16 for the first time in its history. But that powerful, accurate strike meant far more than one team advancing to the next stage. It seemed to carry with it two years of suffering, silence, and a battle fought far from the pitch.

That reality became clear at the end of the match when, still catching his breath, Eustáquio did not limit himself to talking about football. “Everything I do is for my family, for my parents, for my girlfriend, for my daughter. For my friends back home. For everyone,” he said on the pitch after being named man of the match. It was impossible not to understand that the goal had some very specific people in mind.

Between April 2023 and May 2024, while wearing the FC Porto shirt, Stephen Eustáquio lost both his mother and his father. Two crushing losses, far too close to each other. For months, he kept playing almost on autopilot. “I didn’t even have time to cry for my mother,” he confessed in a documentary on Canadian channel TSN. Football did not slow down, the matches kept coming, and grief was constantly postponed. He would later also recall that when his mother was diagnosed with cancer, he even questioned whether it made sense to keep playing football, at precisely the moment when he felt he should be by her side.

The son of Portuguese immigrants, Stephen was born in Leamington, Ontario, Canada, but grew up in Portugal from the age of 7, after the family returned to Nazaré. It is in that transitional space, between countries, languages, and identities, that both the player and the person were shaped.

His mother at the center of everything

In the documentary devoted to the Canadian midfielder, one image keeps returning: family life as the foundation of his journey. Esmeralda and Armando Eustáquio appear as quiet pillars: she in the logistics of daily life, the training sessions, the waits inside the car; he in his work at sea, in the idea of effort as a permanent condition. In that context, football was never an individual project, but always a shared construction. His older brother, Mauro, also followed that path, first as a player and then as a coach in Canada.

“It was my mother who was always watching the games, taking me to training, me and my brother. She supported me so much. She didn’t understand football, but she was always there. Very passionate. Very understanding. Very supportive. And simply… a true friend. I don’t think my mother even ate a meal at home. It was always: ‘Right, let’s travel here, let’s travel there',” revealed the captain of the Canadian national team.

In Portugal, Eustáquio followed the typical path of someone who does not come in through the front door. He went through youth development, including a spell at Sporting, and then senior football, where nothing is guaranteed: Leixões, Torreense, Desportivo de Chaves. It was at Chaves that he began to establish himself more consistently, gaining visibility and competitive maturity.

In 2018, he signed for Cruz Azul of Mexico and reached Portugal’s youth national teams, having represented the under-21s, but a place in the senior national team never materialized. In service of “Los cementeros,” he played only two matches: in the second, a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee brought his career to a halt. It was a forced stop at a moment when everything pointed toward acceleration. The impact was profound, not only physically but existentially as well.

The recovery was long, slow, and full of doubts. Eustáquio said that at the time, he felt his career might have ended right there, on that pitch, in that instant. His knee did not respond, his body seemed to have aged suddenly, and his mind was fighting the idea that football might not give back what it had taken from him. He eventually returned to the Portuguese league, first with Paços de Ferreira, before making the jump to FC Porto.

After eight months of recovery, Stephen was faced with an important decision. “I got a call from John Herdman [then Canada’s head coach] saying: ‘You know, we want you here with us. You can wait for an opportunity that may never come with Portugal, or you can embrace this experience with the Canadian national team and actually make it to the World Cup.’” The decision was made as a family. “I feel that the 7 years I lived in Canada were very good, and the only way to give back to Canada was by playing for them,” he told TSN, recalling his mother’s words: “Don’t look back, go, and we will always be here for you.”

Two dark years with a light in the middle

When, in August 2022, already as an FC Porto player, he learned that his mother had brain cancer, he felt the ground disappear beneath his feet. He was preparing to play in the Qatar World Cup, a competition Esmeralda was also eagerly awaiting, so she could finally watch her son play for the Canadian national team. That never got to happen. “My mother was the most special person. If people know me, they know her, because I’m a mirror. She was the best mother, to be honest.”

One year after that devastating loss, Stephen received a new light in his life when he became the father of Benedita in April 2024, who, according to him, has many similarities to Esmeralda. But a month later, fate struck him hard again. A heart attack took his father suddenly.

Only Stephen knows where he found the strength that never left him in the hardest moments of his life. Along the way, football also brought him some joys and, perhaps, some of the resilience he has always shown. In the years he played for FC Porto, he helped the club win two national league titles and six cups in four years.

At the start of 2026, he was loaned to MLS side LAFC and was clear: “I didn’t feel bitterness about not finishing the season because my time with FC Porto was spectacular. I was there for four years, five seasons. This was my eighth title won, I had the chance to win every cup, to win the league, play in the Champions League, play in the Europa League. The moment came when I said that if my career at FC Porto ended there, I would leave happy. And I had to look after myself, with the World Cup approaching.”

The World Cup arrived and the Canadians’ number 7 and captain once again showed his stature. The goal that secured Canada a place in the round of 16 means more than a historic qualification. For a few moments, it changed the weight with which Stephen Eustáquio carries his own story and gave him back a moment of happiness. The words of Canadian coach Jesse Marsch after the match against South Africa reinforce that idea: “I can’t think of anyone more deserving in a group of incredible people. Maybe Steph is the one who most deserves to live a moment like that. So I’m very happy for him, and I think that, from somewhere, his parents are looking down and saw that.”

With one more season remaining on his contract with FC Porto, the future of 29-year-old Stephen Eustáquio remains open.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.