Canadian soccer fans face a patriotic dilemma.

After winning their first-ever point in the FIFA World Cup, then their first-ever match, the Canadian men’s team missed the chance to stay in Vancouver for the knockout stage when they lost to Switzerland. Instead, they’ll play in Los Angeles against South Africa on Sunday.

So supporters must choose whether to follow Les Rouges no matter what, or maintain a boycott of the U.S. that started more than a year ago, when U.S. President Donald Trump said he would use “economic force” to bend Canada into becoming the 51st state.

The world’s largest sporting tournament is throwing up a number of situations that reveal Canada’s complex relationship with its neighbor, longtime ally, No. 1 trading partner and World Cup co-host.

Arylnn Poczynek, 54, used to visit the U.S. all the time, but has been boycotting since Trump’s return to office, visiting only once for a funeral. But he’ll make an exception to his no-travel policy to fly to Los Angeles from Edmonton, Alberta, for Sunday’s contest.

“That should give you some idea of the importance of this match to me,” he said by phone. “It’s very, very much exceptional.”

He’s not alone: Demand looked strong for LA game tickets, according to Matt Serson, a director of The Voyageurs, a Canada team supporters’ group. An allotment of seats from Canada’s soccer governing body “sold out within minutes” on Thursday morning, said Serson, who estimated it was about 5,600 tickets. Canada Soccer didn’t respond to a request for comment.

U.S. trips by Canadian residents are down about 30% from before Trump’s return to office, according to Statistics Canada data. But Serson said he spent Thursday frantically helping supporters with tickets and travel arrangements.

“We’ve got tons of messages already over social media, Canadians who are in LA, asking about tickets — so it’ll be a very pro-Canadian crowd.”

Elite sports help illustrate how intertwined the U.S.-Canada relationship is. The top North American professional leagues for hockey, basketball, baseball and soccer are dominated by US teams but include Canadian ones as well.

Last year, when Trump began mocking Canada and threatening tariffs, Canadians lashed out inside the arena. They loudly booed The Star-Spangled Banner before a U.S.-Canada hockey game at the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament. When the U.S. flag was brought out during Toronto’s World Cup opening ceremony, some fans jeered, drawing pointed criticism from Trump’s ambassador to Canada, Pete Hoekstra. (Some also booed the U.S. flag during Mexico’s ceremony.)

Inspiring coach

Canada’s head coach, Jesse Marsch, is an American. That doesn’t matter. Canadian fans have fallen for him, with his animated gestures from the touchline, his passion and the way he belts out the Canadian anthem before matches.

Marsch, a former assistant coach with the U.S. national team, has a way of expressing pride in the Canadian squad that has ruffled some feathers in his home country. “In the U.S., sometimes we had to beg players to sing the national anthem,” but Canada’s players patriotically sing it, Marsch said shortly before his team’s first match against Bosnia and Herzegovina.

That sparked an angry retort from the U.S. team’s joint all-time leading scorer, Clint Dempsey. “I’m not going to take advice from someone who switched to the other side and singing another country’s national anthem,” he said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is all in on the soccer. He flew across the country twice to attend Canada’s games in Vancouver, even giving the squad a surprise locker-room speech after their 6-0 trouncing of Qatar.

But while Vancouver’s BC Place stadium is overflowing with patriotic World Cup fever, there’s also an uncomfortable irony. The Vancouver Whitecaps, the city’s Major League Soccer club and tenants of that same arena, face an uncertain future — and a potential move to the U.S.

Though the Whitecaps made the MLS Cup final last year and are currently tied for first place in the league’s western conference, that success may not be enough to save them. The team’s owners have been trying to find investors for 19 months to stay in the city. Today it looks like a money-losing proposition. The club doesn’t control BC Place, creating challenges over scheduling and revenue. There are also more sponsorship opportunities in the U.S., from private healthcare companies to sports betting.

A consortium has lodged an offer to buy the Whitecaps and relocate them to Las Vegas. That raises the possibility of a second Vancouver franchise being whisked away to a U.S. city, following the 2001 move of its National Basketball Association team to Memphis, Tenn.

Local soccer fans are rallying, and hoping the World Cup might change things for the club.

Whitecaps fan Mike Reynolds, 43, took the day off work and paid C$1,600 ($1,127) for a “nosebleed” seat at BC Place to see Canada play Switzerland on Wednesday. He talked about a new era for soccer in a country that, prior to 2022, had qualified for the World Cup only once.

“Only in recent years — we’ll say, since Alphonso Davies and some of the stars we’ve brought up, Jonathan David, Cyle Larin, and some of these guys — have we had anything to get really excited about,” he said as he walked to the game alongside thousands of ebullient fans in red Canada jerseys.

“Hopefully what this event can do is show that there is a heartbeat for soccer in the city, that there is a love and a passion for the game,” Reynolds said. “And that maybe it might entice someone to step up and try to keep soccer here.”

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