TORONTO — A historic first World Cup victory continues to elude the Canadian men’s team. 

But Les Rouges collected their first-ever World Cup point on Friday courtesy of a come-from-behind 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina in a thrilling contest before an announced crowd of 43,002 fans at BMO Field. 

Substitute Cyle Larin came off the bench to level the score and then nearly netted the go-ahead goal deep into injury time for Canada, who lost all six of its previous World Cup matches dating back to its tournament debut in 1986. 

“We knew that Bosnia has experience, that they're aggressive and that they're savvy and confident. They showed that they are a stable team that's up for the fight in the qualifiers to get into the World Cup, so they were pretty much exactly what we thought they would be,” coach Jesse Marsch said in the post-match press conference. 

“We just needed to represent ourselves better, and we did that better in the second half. We knew that our fitness and our youth and our speed had the potential to wear them down as the game went on. You have to give Bosnia a lot of credit; to come here in a first home World Cup match for Canada, not an easy situation for them to deliver that kind of performance and hang on for a point. 

I think it could have gone either way. They had chances to make it maybe two-nil. We had chances to find the win. So, in the end, I think that a draw is a fair result.” 

This draw sets the Canadians up quite nicely in Group B as a win over Qatar in Vancouver next Thursday would give them four points and likely send them through to the knockout stage. 

Here are three takeaways from Friday’s match.  

Canada nearly undone by lack of finishing 

A draw was a fair result and the one point earned was well deserved by Canada. At the same time, Marsch’s side will be kicking themselves after this one. 

The Canadians' effort and fighting spirit was in abundance on the day; if only their execution was more precise, we’d be talking about a Canadian victory right now. 

Canada spurned far too many scoring chances and could have easily won the game in a comfortable manner had it been more clinical in........

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