Toronto hosts final World Cup game as Portugal faces Croatia

Toronto Stadium closed its World Cup schedule Thursday night with a Round of 32 match between Portugal and Croatia, a 7 p.m. ET kickoff that marked the city’s final game of the 2026 tournament. The matchup paired Portugal, which finished second in Group K after a 0-0 draw with Colombia, against Croatia, which advanced as Group L runner-up after a 2-1 win over Ghana.

The game also carried the kind of star power that host cities spend years chasing. Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, and Luka Modrić, 40, entered the match as the two names most likely to define it, with the possibility that one of them was making a final World Cup appearance. One report said Ronaldo was in Toronto for the first time since 2009, while Modrić had recently reached his 200th international appearance in the city, adding another layer to a meeting already framed as one of the standout fixtures of the knockout round.

For Toronto, the closing act was as much about what the tournament left behind as what happened on the pitch. Reuters described the city’s Portuguese and Croatian communities as having been handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and local coverage showed those communities responding in kind, with fan walks, watch parties and heavy turnout expected across the Greater Toronto Area. CBC News said fans were out in droves for the game, underscoring how quickly the tournament had become a diaspora event as much as a sporting one.

The city’s Portuguese presence gave the match a particular weight. Coverage noted that more than 400,000 Canadians have Portuguese heritage, a demographic reality that helped turn the fixture into a cultural gathering point well beyond Toronto Stadium. That interest also reflected the broader promise local leaders attached to the World Cup: not just tickets sold, but public squares filled, neighborhoods activated and a shared civic moment that reached outside the stadium gates.

Extreme heat complicated that picture. An ongoing heat warning forced some cancellations, including Nathan Phillips Square watch parties, and cut into the public celebrations that had been planned around the match. Even so, the turnout around the Greater Toronto Area suggested Toronto had secured the kind of final-day atmosphere host cities hope will outlive the tournament itself, with Portugal and Croatia providing a closing scene built around history, migration and two veterans whose careers have shaped the modern game.