Liam Millar's resolve to return from injury might prove a lodestar for wobbly Canadian World Cup squad

Every team has an unlikely leader — not the best player, and not the biggest personality, but a player whose presence speaks to something larger about the game and its possibilities. Some players lead by being part of the team at all.

For Canada’s men, that player might be Liam Millar.

In Oct. 2024, in a game with his English side Hull, Millar took an inside step and heard a crack in his knee. He didn’t feel any pain. He wasn’t even sure he’d hurt himself. Only the sound gave him pause. He’d broken his arm before, and it had made a similar sound. He wondered if he’d somehow broken his leg.

The team’s physiotherapists came onto the field, and they ran through their tests. Millar still felt no pain. Maybe his knee had just cracked like knuckles.

He stayed in the game but soon realized that something was more deeply wrong. His kneecap felt loose, as though it had lost its anchor. “The weirdest sensation I’ve ever had,” he said.

He came out. The physios told him that an injury like his — a potential injury, at that point — will diagnose itself. Knees are self-barometers. Millar drove home without difficulty. He went downstairs to his kitchen to get a bite and ran back up the stairs to test himself. He still felt fine.

“I thought I might be okay,” he said.

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He went to bed and slept for a few hours before he woke up at 3 a.m., his knee painful and swollen. He regarded it in the semidarkness and knew: He’d torn his ACL, the nightmare injury for soccer players, especially for the workhorses and ground coverers, for players like Liam Millar. 

“Sometimes you just take a step, and everything changes,” he said.

He allowed himself a few tears and