Canada’s Samuel Piette, left, and Dominica’s Thomas Briel battle for the ball in Toronto on Tuesday.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Tesho Akindele scored his first international goal and set up one of two Tosaint Ricketts goals as Canada dispatched Dominica 4-0 Tuesday for a 6-0 aggregate win over the Caribbean minnow in the first stop on the Canadian men's 2018 World Cup qualifying journey.
Canada, ranked 109th in the world, dominated the part-timers from No. 168 Dominica before an announced crowd of 9,749 on a pleasant, breezy 20-plus-degree night at BMO Field. A contingent of green-clad Dominica fans in the north stand did their best to cheer on the visitors, whose roster included fishermen, construction workers and students.
Cyle Larin also scored for Canada, which could have padded its lead. Dominica goalie Glenson Prince saved a David Edgar penalty after a handball early in the second half and Canada's Jonathan Osorio hit the goalpost in the 89th minute.
It was Canada's first four-goal performance since a 4-0 victory over St. Kitts and Nevis in November, 2011, in World Cup qualifying.
Benito Floro's team will find out who it faces next in qualifying at the July 25 World Cup preliminary draw in St. Petersburg. Canada, whose only World Cup appearance came in 1986, has at least 18 more games to go if it is to be successful in its bid to represent CONCACAF, which covers North and Central America and the Caribbean, in Russia in 2018.
The play of Larin, a native of Brampton, Ont., taken first overall in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft by Orlando City, and Calgary-born Akindele, MLS rookie of the year in 2014 for FC Dallas, bodes well for future challenges.
Canada went into the game up 2-0 from the first leg and wasted little time trying to add to its margin, testing Prince from all angles and distances. The Dominica goalkeeper faced 14 shots, 11 on target in the first half alone.
Canada, which skipped the first round of CONCACAF qualifying, will be joined in the third round of CONCACAF qualifying by Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Curacao, Guatemala, Grenada, Nicaragua, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and either El Salvador or St. Kitts and Nevis.
Those 10 second-round winners join Jamaica and Haiti – the seventh- and eight-seeded teams in the region – in six home-and-away series to be played Aug. 21 to Sept. 8.