'I always prove them wrong': Canadian World Cup hero Cyle Larin defiant in face of constant criticism

It was an instantly iconic image: Cyle Larin, two minutes after he first jogged onto the pitch, standing in front of a roaring Toronto Stadium crowd, in the moments after he scored one of the great goals of his life and in Canadian soccer history, with his eyes closed and his fingers in his ears.

His goal — a composed 78th-minute finish from the top of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s body-filled box — drew Canada’s men level in their first World Cup match on home soil, and eventually earned them their first point.

“Today was special,” Larin said after. “I showed when I played, I scored.”

His defiant pose after was no accident. The 31-year-old receives more online abuse than perhaps any of Canada’s players, a particular affront given his contributions to a program that he’s led from the front since 2014. He’s the second-leading goal scorer among Canadian men, behind only Jonathan David; Friday’s historic marker was his 31st, a remarkable number.

But in many eyes, he can look old and slow, too measured when the modern game calls for a more unbridled, frenzied attack.

“I always prove them wrong,” Larin said of his detractors. “I did it again. Hopefully now they can shut up.”

Awkwardly, Jesse Marsch, his head coach, has sometimes been one of them.

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Marsch believes that soccer, especially World Cup soccer, is a young man’s game, best played at an extraordinary pace. His constant instruction during the opening match, expressed with every fibre of his coiled-up being, was faster, faster, faster.

That’s why he dropped Larin for Tani Oluwaseyi, the quick, rangy