Ismaël Koné almost passed out. Cyle Larin was almost deafened.
Seventy-eight minutes into a Friday lunchtime where 'almost' looked like becoming a Canadian curse, one decisive moment sparked an uproarious outpouring of emotion.
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Until last week, Toronto Stadium was BMO Field.
In his post-match press conference, Canada coach Jesse Marsch's head was still scrambled enough that he tripped over the stadium's name: 'It doesn't feel like the same BMO … I guess … you guys didn't hear that.'
No one has heard the home of Canadian football sound like it did when Larin lashed in his late equaliser to grab a first-ever men's World Cup point for the tournament's co-hosts in their 1-1 draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina.
'Honestly, I felt like I was going to faint. It was crazy,' said Koné, the Sassuolo midfielder whose slaloming run off the left sparked the breakthrough.
'I felt like we did everything to give ourselves the chance to score.
We were on top of them, we were pushing the game, we had momentum, we hit the bar.
We deserved it. It was just a relief.'
Larin had been dropped to the bench for this long-awaited home opener. He took just two minutes to prove his point after coming on.
As the decibels soared, he wheeled away to the southwest corner and put an index finger into each ear.
'That's for the fans, the reporters, and the journalists who say I shouldn't have been where I'm supposed to be,' said Larin.
