Stephen Eustaquio lashed home from the edge of the box in the 92nd minute, and then he broke down. The Canada midfielder’s stoppage‑time strike sealed a 1‑0 win over South Africa in the World Cup round of 32 – but the moment that followed was raw, personal, and impossible to contain. In a post‑match interview on ITV, the 29‑year‑old held back tears as he remembered his parents, Esmeralda and Armando, who died within a year of each other. Esmeralda was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022 and died in 2023. Armando suffered a heart attack and passed away suddenly in 2024.
“Everything I do is for my family, for my parents, for my girlfriend, for my daughter,” a visibly emotional Eustaquio said. “For my friends back home. For everyone.” His eyes welled up further when he added later: “For my brother, for my friends back home – for all of them.” The Ontario‑born midfielder, who vice‑captains Canada at this summer’s World Cup, was playing for more than just a place in the last 16.
“Stephen Eustaquio scored a 92nd-minute winner for Canada, then wept on ITV remembering his parents who died within a year.”
Canada – joint‑hosts of the tournament – had laboured through a game that lacked real quality before Eustaquio’s late intervention at the Los Angeles Stadium. The victory sets up a last‑16 tie against either Morocco or the Netherlands in Houston on 4 July. “I think we worked a lot to get this victory,” Eustaquio said. “We really wanted to give this win to all of the Canadians. We just kept believing, kept pushing and I couldn’t have imagined it any other way. When I shot, I felt everyone shot with me. They put a little bit of power on it and it went into the back of the net.”
His journey to this stage has been shaped by family sacrifice. As a child, his family relocated to Portugal, where his mother ferried him to football matches while his father worked at sea. Eustaquio came through Portugal’s lower leagues before being snapped up by giants Porto in 2022. He was loaned to Los Angeles FC earlier this year, and his form earned him a key role under head coach Jesse Marsch. “We knew the game would get a little wild sometimes,” Marsch said, “because they like to play in open spaces and sometimes, in transition, they can be very difficult to deal with. We tried to make sure we kept our structure … we kept ramping up the level of the game. Then it fell to Steph and I’m just hoping he puts it on frame and gives us a chance. He buries it. I can’t help but think of all the hard work from these guys. They are Canadian heroes, that’s what I told them at the end.”
Tragedy has drawn Eustaquio closer to his older brother, Mauro, and made him even more passionate about playing for his girlfriend, Constanca, and their young daughter Benedita. Of his mother’s ordeal, he said during the Copa America in 2024: “She was suffering. And there was this time when it was not healthy even for her. It was not healthy for my dad because he was on top of everything and trying to help her. It was not healthy for us.” Now, with his parents gone, every goal carries a weight that goes beyond the scoreline. “Everything I do is for my parents,” he had said. And on Sunday night, it was enough to carry Canada forward.