Canada got the international window off to a good start on Friday with a 2-0 win over Qatar at the Generali Arena in Vienna.

The Reds struck quickly and scored their two goals in the first fifteen minutes.

Cyle Larin opened the scoring in the fourth minute while Jonathan David, very opportunistic, jumped on a return to double Canada’s lead in the 13th minute.

The Canadians, 43rd in the FIFA rankings, left little room for the Qataris, who are ranked 48th in the world.

It was Canada’s first game against opponents from outside the CONCACAF zone since March 2018. Canada will play a second game before the World Cup when they meet Uruguay in Bratislava, Slovakia on Tuesday.

Firmly

Canada never really bothered in that game and could have picked up a more convincing win, according to Samuel Piette.

“We didn’t really know them, we’d only seen bits and pieces of Gold Cup games. We would have liked to have scored more goals, but it’s a solid performance from us,” said the midfielder.

“We put in a good defensive performance with the shutout and we were good overall,” added coach John Herdman.

There was a small moment of concern in the second half when Alphonso Davies collapsed on the ground with a visible injury to his left knee.

He was able to get up and hobbled back to the bench, but Herdman wanted to calm down.

“We’ve assessed Alphonso off the bench and it doesn’t seem too worrying.”

Montreal efforts

Five CF Montreal players are part of Canada’s squad, and of that number only centre-back Joel Waterman was not featured.

Samuel Piette played the first 60 minutes and, in addition to very good offensive balls, also offered a very good defensive performance.

As Piette’s successor, Ismaël Koné was able to demonstrate his offensive talent by bringing a lot of dynamism to the attack.

Defenders Alistair Johnston and Kamal Miller played the whole game and were solid from start to finish. Miller came close to making it 3-0 by hitting the crossbar late in the game.