TORONTO, CANADA – It’s 2009, and the spiky-haired 24-year-old Ronaldo graces the streets of Toronto for the first time, greeted by hundreds of enthusiastic fans waiting to catch a glimpse of the newly signed Real Madrid superstar.
Fast forward 17 years and the visuals are pretty much the same, with some differences.
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Hundreds of Toronto residents took to the streets, lining highways, climbing on each other’s shoulders at busy downtown intersections and peeking out from high-rise buildings, to catch a 10-second glimpse of Ronaldo as Portugal arrived in Toronto on Wednesday ahead of their World Cup last-32 match against Croatia.
The soccer icon was last in Toronto in August 2009 when Real Madrid played a friendly against Toronto FC, coincidentally the same stadium where Portugal will play Croatia on Thursday night.
Wednesday’s public holiday gave fans more of a chance to catch a glimpse of the 41-year-old soccer legend in what will likely be his last World Cup ever, and if Portugal are eliminated, his last World Cup match.
From the moment Portugal landed at Pearson Airport early Wednesday afternoon, the city was abuzz with Ronaldo fever.
A group of bikers lined the Gardiner Expressway to escort the Portuguese team’s bus to the Delta Hotel. Hundreds of fans gathered to see Ronaldo step off the bus, and again as the team headed to Centennial Park for a training session.
At the Etobicoke field, dozens of star-adoring fans wearing red No. 7 jerseys stood outside the field as Ronaldo and Portugal warmed up on what was considered the hottest day of the year in Canada.
The fan enthusiasm was justified. For most Portuguese fans in the city, this was the closest they would get to see the one and only Cristiano Ronaldo in person.
Tickets for the match were priced at an absurd C$30,000 ($21,000), putting them out of reach for the average soccer fan.
Tickets for sold-out games have averaged between C$2,500 and C$3,500 on resale platforms over the past week, despite Ontario law prohibiting third-party sales above face value.
“I’m a father and a husband, so no matter how much I wanted to see Portugal in Toronto, I couldn’t justify spending that much money on tickets,” Joey, 33, told Al Jazeera as he wrapped up his shift at Bairrada Churrasqueira on the edge of Toronto’s Little Portugal.
“But it still feels surreal that Portugal is playing here in Toronto. Who would have thought that?” said a smiling restaurant employee, flipping a chair over a table before mopping the floor.
worlds collide
Joey, who declined to give his last name, is one of tens of thousands of Portuguese-Canadians who have called Toronto home for decades.
The first wave of immigrants arrived in the 1950s seeking better opportunities for themselves and their families. Just last year, the city opened Azores Park in the heart of Little Portugal to honor the 18 “pioneers” who left San Miguel in the Azores and landed on Halifax’s shores to build a new life.
So when Portugal takes the field at Toronto Stadium on Thursday, it will be more than just a game for generations of hyphenated Canadians in the city. For them, it’s two worlds colliding in a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
For 46-year-old Shannon Medeiros, this fight has even more significance. A football fanatic, she fell in love with the sport at the age of six thanks to her father. Her father attended every game and guided her as she delved into the sport.
The game has been an important part of her and her family’s lives since the 1950s, when her father and his family arrived in Canada at the age of 16.
Like many immigrants at the time, he had to abandon schooling in favor of work to provide for his family, but in his case, his family arrived in Montreal with just a suitcase and lived in another family’s basement until they could afford to buy their own home.
Soccer was the only non-negotiable public staple of the Portuguese community, which grew from a few hundred people to more than 300,000 people.
“That’s what we do as a family right now, and that’s how much this game means to us,” Medeiros said. She now coaches her two sons in the sport, just as their father did.
The storyline is much the same as that of Canadian wonderboy Stephen Eustaquio, who scored the goal against South Africa to lead his team to the World Cup’s last 16 for the first time in history.
The Ontario-born, part-Portuguese soccer star was drawn to the sport by his father and Portuguese background for his love of soccer. As Canada has embraced dozens of ethnicities for decades, the sport has been a way for communities to come together and enjoy a common identity.
“What you see in the Portuguese community is how proud we are that wearing the jersey and flying the flag is part of our heritage and culture,” Medeiros told Al Jazeera.
A stroll through Little Portugal during the World Cup will show you just that. A diagonal flag splitting Canada and Portugal in half flutters on porches, is affixed to bedroom windows, and wherever you stand, the ubiquitous needle of the CN Tower peeks over the neighborhood.
Match prediction
Medeiros admitted that although his team has not performed to the best of their abilities in this tournament, they have a good chance of winning against Croatia. She ends up watching the game with her father at her father’s house to see if her prediction is correct.
Elsewhere in the city, fans without match tickets are heading to sports bars, match screenings and fan festivals to see if Ronaldo scores his first goal of the tournament after an impressive start to the World Cup for the Portuguese captain.
“I think Portugal will win 2-1, maybe 3-1, but don’t tell my girlfriend I said that,” grins Josh Madiros as he waits for drinks at Garrafeira. The 35-year-old Portuguese-Canadian will be supporting the team away from his Croatian girlfriend.
He thought long and hard before admitting that the Portuguese team has had a shaky performance so far and that there is only so much Ronaldo can do as a player in his 40s.
“But he’s still my guy and he’s still the GOAT.”
