Vermont Green FC, a semi-professional soccer club based in Burlington, played the Canadian men’s national team in a pre-FIFA World Cup scrimmage Saturday.
The game, held in Montreal, served as one of Canada’s final training sessions before competing in this year’s World Cup, which starts Thursday. Canada’s first game of the tournament is set for Friday against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The tournament, which takes place every four years, is being played this year across 16 cities in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The final is scheduled for July 19.
It’s not uncommon ahead of the World Cup for national soccer teams to play local clubs as warm-ups for the big stage. These matches, known as “friendlies,” give teams a chance to practice key plays and finalize their tactics in a low-stakes setting.
But for Vermont Green, which is made up largely of college-level players and was founded just five years ago, the match was “an enormous opportunity,” said Adam Pfeifer, the team’s sporting director, in a press release announcing the game.
The match was closed to the public and the team declined to share the result.
“It was surreal,” said David Ajagbe, a forward for Vermont Green who plays for the University of Portland during the school year. Ajagbe, a junior, is from Vancouver — a fact he said made the weekend’s game take on another level of significance.
“I want to do whatever I can to help my country be ready for the World Cup,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “It’s like a once in a lifetime opportunity — and it was just a great, great experience.”
Ajagbe said he knew some of the Canadian team’s players personally, including one of its stars: Alphonso Davies, who plays for perennial German league champions FC Bayern Munich. Ajagbe trains with Davies in the winter, he said.
Vermont Green, meanwhile, has a host of other connections to Canada. For the past two seasons, the team has fielded six Canadian players. Several of them, including Ajagbe, played in the national championship game the team won in 2025.
That league, USL League 2, takes place over the summer and is one of the main competitions for collegiate players to showcase their skills for professional scouts.
Vermont also plays an annual match, outside the confines of its league, against semi-professional teams from Quebec that it calls the “Maple Cup.” In the cup’s three iterations so far — two featuring its men’s team, and one with its women’s squad — the Green have won every time.
“What’s sweeter than Vermont maple syrup? Drinking Vermont maple syrup out of the Maple Cup trophy,” the club wrote in a press release about the women’s win last month.
