Eustáquio's foot delivers late strike for Canada’s first World Cup knockout win

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — The tension kept building between two teams making their first appearance in a World Cup knockout match. With no goals on the scoreboard, the minutes ticked down with extra time looming.

Then Stephen Eustáquio scored in the second minute of second-half stoppage time, and Canada beat South Africa 1-0 on Sunday.

“I shot with everything I had,” Eustáquio said.

The party was on, for red-clad fans in the stands at SoFi Stadium and at watch parties across Canada, one of three World Cup hosts.

“Overall, it’s pretty much a perfect knockout performance,” right back Alistair Johnston said.

Hockey dominates Canada in the winter months. Now, summer belongs to the men's national soccer team.

The country’s previous best men's international result was winning CONCACAF Gold Cup championships in 1985 and 2000. The women's Olympic team won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

"For Canadian sports history, it’s going to be a moment where you’re going to kind of know where you were when that moment happened,” Johnston said. “That’s something that is not lost on us. We know that not only are we writing history in Canadian soccer, but in Canadian sport, and that’s a magical thing.”

Just when it looked like 30 minutes of extra time was coming, Johnston's pass to the right side was cleared to the edge of the box and found Eustáquio, who drilled a clean strike into the bottom corner.

“It’s just a moment of magic and something just comes over your body,” Johnston said. “You see Steph sprinting away and just the whole team sprinting. It’s one of those moments that you’ll never forget.”

Eustáquio became a Canadian hero in Los Angeles, where he played about 10 miles away in downtown for the MLS club LAFC. The 29-year-old midfielder was born in Canada and in his younger days played for Portugal, where his late parents were from.

Eustáquio suffered back-to-back devastating blows when his mother died from brain cancer in 2023 and his father died of a heart attack in 2024. He remains close with his brother, Mauro, a former player and a coach in the Canadian Premier League.

“I couldn’t think of a more deserving human being in a group of incredible human beings, maybe Steph is the most deserving to have a moment like that,” coach Jesse Marsch said. “So I’m really happy for him. I think from somewhere his parents are looking down and they saw that.”

In 2019, Eustáquio committed to play for the Canadian national team.

“Today, we have to enjoy the fact that we made everybody back home proud,” he said. “I am over the moon.”

In the next moment, Eustáquio was quick to come down to Earth.

“I don't want to say that the job is finished,” he said. “We have to be humble, we have to recover well and we know that in six days we’re going to have a very tough team.”

Next up, Canada plays either the Netherlands or Morocco in Houston on July 4.

“We’re going to get a chance now at a true Goliath next weekend,” Johnston said, “and that’s something that we’re all extremely excited about.”

Eustáquio couldn't see the clock to know about how much time was left. Even during the hydration breaks, he wasn't sure.

“There was a little bit of frustration knowing that we didn’t score and they were probably going to score if they kept pushing,” he said, “but Jesse was just trying to remain calm, tell the team to keep pushing.”

The Canadians got a boost when their star player, Alphonso Davies, removed his substitute bib and entered in the 75th minute. He hadn't played in a World Cup match since injuring his hamstring in May with Bayern Munich in a Champions League semifinal.

Eustáquio had served as captain in Davies' absence during the group-stage matches.

“We have a special group. We feel like we are brothers,” Eustáquio said. “When we fight for each other, when we play for each other, special things like this can happen.”

See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here

Canada's Stephen Eustaquio walks off the field after scoring the winning goal against South Africa in a World Cup Round of 32 soccer match in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Canada head coach Jesse Marsch celebrates after the World Cup round of 32 soccer match against South Africa in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marcio Sanchez)

Players of Canada celebrate after the World Cup round of 32 soccer match against South Africa in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Marcio Sanchez)

Canada's Stephen Eustaquio (7) celebrates after the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between South Africa and Canada in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Canadian fans celebrate after Canada defeated South Africa during a World Cup round of 32 soccer match, at FIFA Fan Fest in Vancouver, Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

BANGKOK (AP) — Vietnam is increasingly using broadly written laws to arrest activists, dissidents and others that authorities consider a threat to the Communist Party's rule, according to a new analysis released Monday by a human rights group.

The 88 Project, which focuses on rights issues in Vietnam, documented 56 such arrests in 2025, the third consecutive year of increases and double the number in 2022. The report includes only arrests where the defendant could be identified by name and the case tracked, and the actual numbers are believed to be much higher, said Ben Swanton, co-director of the group.

The report says the country under leader To Lam “routinely weaponizes criminal law” to quash dissent. To Lam, the country’s former top security official who has served as general secretary of the Communist Party since 2024, was also elected president earlier this year.

The arrests are largely driven by fears of an uprising against the leadership in a so-called “color revolution,” like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, or the 1986 Yellow Revolution in the Philippines, according to the report.

It is a fear shared by the Communist Party in neighboring China, which has been accused of using similar tactics to stifle critics. Though competing maritime claims have led to confrontations between the two countries and a tense diplomatic relationship at times, China and Vietnam were able to agree earlier this year to together “prioritize political security and enhance efforts to prevent and resist color revolutions,” the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

“With the ascendancy of To Lam, the country has become a literal police state that tolerates no dissent,” Swanton said.

“This represents a serious regression from the period of relative openness in the 2010s when some dissent was tolerated and civil society groups were able to engage in policy activism.”

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment on the findings of the report.

The report found that authorities are relying increasingly on Article 331 of Vietnam's penal code, which makes it a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison to “abuse democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state.”

Previously little used, “authorities have enlarged the scope and application of Article 331 so that it reaches further into society, beyond human rights and democracy dissidents ... to all those who voice any grievance with state or local Communist Party and government officials,” New York-based Human Rights Watch wrote in a report last year.

“The Vietnamese authorities’ increased use of Article 331 is a little known facet of the government’s expanding crackdown on ordinary people who are seeking to use social media and other peaceful means to publicly raise important social issues, including religious freedom, land rights, rights of Indigenous people, and government and Communist Party corruption,” Human Rights Watch wrote.

Among those arrested under Article 331 last year were three men behind the YouTube channel “Nguoi Da Tin' — The Messenger — on allegations that videos they uploaded were ”distorted content" that violated the statute, The 88 Project reported.

The report provides details of every arrest identified as politically related in 2025.

Those also included an activist for the minority Montagnard group who was arrested in Thailand and extradited to Vietnam, a dissident writer accused of spreading “propaganda against the state,” and a man who helped residents of Ha Tinh province file complaints demanding fair compensation for land expropriated for a new highway.

“The Vietnamese government has dealt alarmingly severe punishments to longstanding targets like journalists and human rights activists, while displaying an increasing willingness to attack groups previously thought safe, such as political exiles and legal petitioners,” the report said.

FILE - A giant Vietnamese national flag hangs from a balcony in the old quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam, Monday, Sept. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian, File)