Veteran 'keeper Milan Borjan finally getting chance to honour his adopted Canada with magical World Cup run

In March 2018, shortly after John Herdman had moved from coaching Canada's women to Canada's men, he held his first camp in Murcia, Spain. He knew that he had some skeptical minds to change, and some wounded hearts to mend. He soon met with goalkeeper Milan Borjan — by Herdman's reckoning, one of the few big names who had bothered showing up — to talk about where the team had been, and where together they might go.

"I remember sitting with this man, the passion coming out of him," Herdman said this week, before Canada's potentially clinching World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica on Thursday night. If there is an unspoken certainty about Herdman's otherwise top-secret lineup, it's that Borjan will be in goal — in no small part because of that long-ago conversation in Murcia.

"I knew I wanted to go to war in every moment with this man," Herdman said.

Herdman remembered, too, how honest Borjan had been during that opening summit. He felt let down by a program that, at the time, ranked 94th in the world, one place ahead of the Faroe Islands, population 48,000. Borjan wanted to give back to the country that had provided refuge for his family when he was 13, and all he had done was lose. Where was the honour in that?

"Canada gave my family everything," Borjan said in January. (His family had fled the Croatian War of Independence and ultimately settled in Hamilton, where they still live.) "When somebody gives you that much love, you have to return it."

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Herdman was taken by the intensity of Borjan's desire as much as his play. In their first game together, a friendly against New Zealand, he didn't face a single shot on target. Borjan's presence still made an impression on