Overview
- Canada Soccer staged a jersey swap in Toronto’s Little Italy on Saturday inviting fans to trade Italy shirts for the new red Canada top at Café Diplomatico as hundreds queued for hours in the cold.
- Organizers let participants keep their Italy jerseys as Canada shirts ran out in under 30 minutes and other gear like scarves and hats went quickly.
- Communications chief Paulo Senra said immigrant communities, including Italo-Canadians, helped build the sport in Canada and urged every fan to get behind the men’s national team.
- The outreach followed Italy’s March 31 loss to Bosnia and Herzegovina that ended its 2026 World Cup bid after earlier misses in 2018 and 2022.
- Canada is co-hosting the tournament and is tapping a large local base, with about 1.5 million people of Italian origin in Canada and most living in Ontario and Quebec.