Toronto Stadium makes memorable impression in the last of its six World Cup matches

TORONTO — Toronto Stadium ended its tenure as a World Cup venue with a bang on Thursday night.

All-time great Cristiano Ronaldo scored on a penalty kick in the second half and Goncalo Ramos put away the winner four minutes into stoppage time in Portugal’s 2-1 come-from-behind victory over Croatia in a Round of 32 match. Although Toronto Stadium was the smallest of the 16 venues used for the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States, its sold-out crowd of 43,036 left a sizable impression on the teams that played in it.

“Congratulations to everybody, to the organizers, to everybody who’s involved in football, soccer, in the city. It was incredible,” said Portugal manager Roberto Martinez. “The training session yesterday, the quality of the grass, was fantastic.

“Everything around the beautiful facilities here, it reminds me of the old-fashioned Premier League grounds. Congratulations to everybody.”

Toronto Stadium — called BMO Field when Toronto FC of Major League Soccer and the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League play in it — hosted six World Cup matches. Five in the group stage and then the climactic elimination game between Portugal and Croatia.

“I think it’s a shame that there are no more games here because we really enjoyed it,” said Martinez in his post-match news conference. “You see the safety for the fans, wonderful support for their teams, with two sets of fans separated by the field.

“I think it was an incredible, incredible spectacle for football.”

There are large Portuguese and Croatian diaspora communities in Ontario. The provincial government said there are more than 300,000 people of Portuguese descent in Ontario and nearly 100,000 people with Croatian roots in the province.

It made for an electric atmosphere in and around Toronto Stadium, with fans singing songs, waving flags, and roaring with every turn of the match. That included Croatian fans throwing debris on the pitch after a tying goal was disallowed in the final minutes of stoppage time.

Croatian manager Zlatko Dalic said the support of the fans tempered the sadness of the match’s result.

“A wonderful atmosphere, a lot of our fans, a lot of support, and I believe that this wonderful football is connecting people, makes people happy and proud,” said Dalic. “I would like to keep the feeling that football is such, and not become a business that it actually has become.”

Toronto Stadium is in the centre of Exhibition Place, Toronto’s fairgrounds. It has a dedicated GO Train station, a loop that is the terminal for two streetcar lines, and a bus route that ends steps away from the Dufferin Gate by the fairgrounds’ northwestern corner.

As the sold-out crowd filtered out of Exhibition Place following Thursday’s match, Toronto Transit Commission spokesman Stuart Green called the transport logistics to and from the venue a success.

“I think it’s a testament to the plan that was done in advance,” said Green, noting that the St. Clair streetcar, which goes through a predominantly Portuguese neighbourhood, had to have some of its service suspended for the night.

“This was the last of the six matches here and after a few adjustments that we made early on to help speed up the fans’ exit. It’s gone quite well.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 2, 2026.

John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press