If Friday afternoon’s World Cup match between Senegal and Iraq proved anything, it’s that Toronto is soccer-mad and that even FIFA’s biggest critics were wrong.
With an announced attendance of 43,036 during Senegal’s 5-0 blowout win over Iraq, it proved that fans were once again willing to the pay the highly criticized dynamic pricing for matches.
Of the five group-stage matches in Toronto, Senegal-Iraq and Ghana-Panama were seen as so-called “tough sells” for the average fan. While the African nations have their share of stars playing in Europe’s biggest leagues, their smaller opponents were low-ranked and lacking headline names.
But even with the cheapest tickets carrying face values of at least $500 – and most seats for much, much more — the stands were packed.
And while high prices often can drive away so-called “true fans” and destroy atmosphere at sporting events, Friday’s match at Toronto Stadium once again delivered the electricity.
What has been the total attendance at Toronto Stadium?
Through the five matches and going by FIFA’s official attendance numbers, there had been only 132 empty seats in Toronto Stadium.
There were 34 empty seats for Canada’s opening match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, 98 for Ghana-Panama and the other three games have all been sellouts of 43,036.
The numbers have stood the eye test, for the most part. Throughout the matches here on the shores of Lake Ontario, no more than a couple of dozen empty seats could be seen. The most noticeable were in the upper reaches of the north-east corner of the stadium, but they always felt like the toughest sells.
Even with Friday’s match taking place at the same time as the Group I blockbuster between France and Norway, fans chose to pay their hard-earned dollars to come down to the shores of Lake Ontario.
As of Friday morning, a few hours before kickoff, the match was sold out on FIFA’s official ticketing portal while just nine tickets for the match were listed on reseller StubHub with the cheapest price approaching $1,000.
What records has the 2026 World Cup set?
In fact, despite the sky-high prices, attendance at matches has been huge across the board.
During Thursday’s match between Germany and Ecuador at New York-New Jersey Stadium, the total tally of fans for the tournament was announced on video boards as a staggering 3,605,357.
The previous record of 3,587,538 had been set in 1994, when the U.S. hosted the tournament by itself.
And while many will point out that this year’s edition features more teams and many more games, the per-match numbers are pretty close. The 1994 tournament had 24 teams and 52 matches while, through the two early games on Thursday when the new record was set, there had been 56 played.
The record for a 32-team, 64-game tournament was set during 2014 Brazil, when 3,429,873 fans attended matches.
What else did the match prove wrong?
By adding 16 teams to the field for this edition of the World Cup, many felt like it would water down interest in matches involving lesser teams.
But if it had not been for the added teams and expanded bracket for the knockout stages, this match would have meant nothing to either side heading in, and we might have been assured of a lack of effort on the field.
With both teams losing their first two matches against France and Norway, first and second place in the group already had been secured by the Europeans sides.
But with third place offering a chance to advance at this tournament, a win by a decent margin could send either side through — and Senegal delivered on that front.
How convincingly did Senegal beat Iraq?
Senegal got things in motion early, with Habib Diarra getting the final touch on a corner for a goal just three minutes into the match that originally had been given to Abdoulaye Seck.
Things then went from bad to worse for Iraq in short order, with Rebin Sulaka being sent off after a VAR review upgraded his yellow card to red for denying a goal-scoring opportunity by Sadio Mane.
Through the rest of the first half, Senegal then dominated possession but were unable to beat the hunkered-down Iraqi defence.
Iraq goalkeeper Ahmed Basil did a fine job of keeping the Lions of Teranga at bay, taking a bit of a beating and having to be subbed off at halftime for Jalal Hassan.
But in the second half, it was all Senegal. Lamine Kamara started it out when he was allowed to dribble into the box past a poor tackle attempt, then slid the ball to Ismaila Sarr, who easily tapped it in.
Then, just three minutes later, fresh substitute Pape Gueye scored a fantastic goal from outside the box to send the crowd into a frenzy.
Senegal proceeded to run up the score with another goal by Gueye — a stunning volley that was completely unsaveable — and then a fifth goal by Iliman Ndiaye.
Senegal manager Pape Thiaw was thrilled with the result, repeatedly congratulating his team during the post-match press conference.
“They wanted to win, they wanted to have hope and scoring five goals is a big thing,” Thiaw said. “Now the job is done and fate is longer in our hands … all we have to do is wait and see.”
It was the first time in World Cup history that an African side had scored five or more goals and with the massive victory, there’s now a good chance its World Cup dreams live on.