Los Angeles, June 29 (IANS) Canada’s goal-scoring hero Stephen Eustaquio reflected on his last-gasp winner against South Africa, which secured co-hosts’ first-ever knockout victory, and said he is delighted to contribute to the team’s historic win, but the job is not done yet.

South Africa were largely staying back, while Canada were struggling to get through, and it felt like the game was headed for extra time. But Canada created the better chances throughout, and Eustaquio stepped up to hammer home a stoppage-time winner.

It was Eustaquio’s first goal for Canada since late 2023 and fourth on American soil after three goals at the 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup, and probably the most important goal of his career.

“It started when we came out of the group stage,” he said about the belief the team had that they would be able to pull of the victory. “I think when it comes to a knockout of the World Cup, the belief brings a big part to it.”

Neither of these sides had ever made the knockout phase before and Canada will now continue their World Cup journey. Jesse Marsch’s men will face the Netherlands-Morocco winners at Houston Stadium.

“And now we’re going to get Morocco or the Netherlands, and who knows, on a good day that we can make things happen. We have a special group, we feel like we are brothers. When we fight for each other, special things can happen. I’m over the moon – but the job’s not finished,” he added.

Speaking about his goal, he revealed that that he didn’t have a look at the clock, but knew it was close to the end when he scored the decisive match-winning goal.

“It’s a tough stadium, I don’t think we can see the [time] of the game,” Eustaquio revealed. “I never saw it. I was looking during the hydration breaks to figure out how much time was left, but when I scored, I knew it was close to the end.”

“We worked a lot to get this victory. We really wanted to give this win to all the Canadians,” he said. “We just kept believing, we kept pushing, and I [don’t] think we could’ve imagined it any other way. When I shot, I felt that everybody shot with me. Everybody put a little bit of power on it and it went into the back of the net,” he concluded.

–IANS

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