Toronto shines in final World Cup showcase as Portugal's head coach laments: 'It's a shame there are no more games here'

TORONTO – VAR has been a buzzkill. Ticket prices have been abhorrent. Hydration breaks haven't fooled anyone into thinking they're about anything other than ad revenue.

A sport known all around the world as the beautiful game has seemingly lost its essence. What's left is the people. Those same people who suffer through video assistant referee delays and questionable microchip decisions, who paid a monthly mortgage or rent payment's worth to see Cristiano Ronaldo and Luka Modrić in the flesh, who boo into the void at Americanized quarter breaks.

Through all of it they got an instant classic.

Ronaldo scored his first World Cup knockout stage goal to cancel out another aging star Ivan Perišić's opening goal, Gonçalo Ramos headed home for a 94th minute lead, and then came Croatia's indomitable spirit with what looked a 103rd minute equalizer. Yes, there was that much VAR intervention and that many substitutions that the match pulsated past the century minute-mark in regular time. But even that was taken away via football's scientific advances. All the while, Modrić tirelessly worked as Croatia's rudder until the final whistle ended his ultimate dream.

Croatia head coach Zlatko Dalic bemoaned a sport that has become a business and expressed a yearning for the feeling his team's supporters provided, even through the tantrum of bottles thrown onto the pitch for what was a perceived injustice. Portugal head coach Roberto Martinez found essence in the Toronto experience, one that perhaps even locals needed to be reminded and possibly even educated of its stadium charm.

"Amazing. It's the first time I arrived in Canada," Martinez said. "The welcoming that we had was incredible, the training session (at Centennial Park in Etobicoke) that we had yesterday, the quality of the grass was fantastic and everything around it, beautiful. The facilities here, even the dressing room, it reminds me a lot of old-fashioned Premier League grounds, a wonderful feel, a wonderful feel.

"Congratulations to everybody, I think it's a shame there are no more games here in Toronto because we really enjoyed it. You see the safety for the fans, a wonderful, wonderful supported game with two set of fans committed to the team. I thought it was an incredible, incredible spectacle for football."

Entering this World Cup, there was criticism of the costs incurred in co-hosting the tournament, the inadequacies of BMO Field, and even the lack of genuine football fandom. But as is custom within the sports realm, you can let your play do the talking.

It has been one magic carpet ride after another over the course of the six matches Toronto has hosted, the city showing the world that it can look anything but out of place on the world's greatest sporting stage. It culminated in this heavyweight clash of titanic players and two of the better teams to have not won a World Cup, and it poetically ended with the romance of Portuguese, Ronaldo fans and their main man.

Following the win, Ronaldo took to the balcony of the Delta Hotel just east of the CN Tower, and thousands serenaded him and celebrated the team's success. This was the most popular athlete in the world who has received fervent support in many parts feeling something special. He later took to Instagram and shared his point of view with a simple caption, "Toronto ❤️."

Joao Pimpim, a veteran journalist for Portuguese outlet A Bola, has covered Ronaldo since he was an 18-year-old along with the Portuguese national team. He expressed surprise at the mere idea that there were doubts over Toronto as a host city, only seeing the beauty of what has transpired over the past three weeks. He has been amazed by the Portuguese support, seduced by the flavours of Little Portugal, and didn't realize until he came to Toronto that he could fall in love with what was advertised as a concrete jungle but offered what he viewed as plenty of green spaces and a beautiful lake. He feels Ronaldo has experienced something similar.

"Yesterday was Canada Day but today it seemed like Portugal Day," Pimpim said after the match. "We did the march for our coverage and we did it during the Euros and those were not even close to this…

"This was the first time he (Ronaldo) came out to the people. I think he was thrilled; at the end I think he was emotional. This is a really special city to him historically."

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. In a week that Kawhi Leonard showed he learned that reality, and the world's soccer fans as well as some of the sport's best players and coaches waxed lyrical about Toronto, perhaps what the city most needed was a reminder for the locals of what can be great about it.

Soccer history in this city now extends from Cyle Larin scoring Canada's first-ever World Cup goal on home soil, to what was more than likely Modric's final World Cup match, to Ronaldo scoring his World Cup knockout goal here and possibly his last-ever World Cup goal. There has been late drama in almost every Toronto match, and the cultures of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Panama, Germany, Ivory Coast, Iraq, Senegal, Croatia, and lastly but not least, Portugal have both inspired and taught a lot about what next-level footy fandom is.

What happens during a World Cup is naturally an exception, but what these three weeks have shown is that the entire perception of what the sport could be in Toronto should change. The potential should be viewed as limitless. It can help Canada become a truly great soccer nation.

And it's all made possible because Toronto has the people to do it.