Emergence of Alistair Johnston is proof that there are diamonds in Canada's soccer rough

Alistair Johnston sat in a Toronto hotel lobby on Sunday, still a little bleary-eyed from the seven-hour flight home from Suriname, where he earned his 50th cap for Canada in fitting fashion last week: a 1-0 win in sweltering conditions in a country he struggled to find on a map.

My goodness, it borders Brazil, he thought when he discovered it.

The 26-year-old Johnston has made an equally surprising arrival on the soccer scene.

In 2019, he was playing collegiate soccer at Wake Forest and spending his summer with Vaughan Azzurri in League1 Ontario. Five years later, he is a principal actor in the Canadian men's return to form and recently captained Scottish club giant Celtic.

"A perfect day," he said of his afternoon with the armband, a 3-0 win over Motherwell in which he scored for good measure. "The outpouring of love and support I got from Celtic fans and back here, it felt like such an important and special thing."

In Europe, most future stars sign contracts when they're as young as eight. The same is becoming true in Canada, where virtually all national youth team picks play in Major League Soccer academies. Talented children on the outside can feel like they're hopelessly behind.

Johnston is proof they are not. 

"I was never silver spooned like that," he said. "I just really loved the sport. If you are a good player, a good person, you work hard and do all the right things, you will get opportunities. People will see you. It doesn't really matter where you are."

His slow build was helpful in some ways. He had always been a midfielder, but during his senior year in college he was converted to fullback, a position of constant, considerable evolution. At 21, he was still an amateur in every sense. 

He excelled in his new role, accelerating his progress enough to see him picked 11th overall by Nashville in the MLS draft. After just two seasons there, and one with CF Montreal, he was off to Scotland. 

His rise within the Canadian ranks was somehow quicker.

"Alistair is a huge part of what we're doing," men's coach Jesse Marsch said. "We all know that as a leader and as a player that he's getting better and better and bigger and bigger in terms of what he means to us."

The relationship between club and country can sometimes be fraught, especially when massive sides like Celtic have a shared stake in a talent. 

Johnston's twin emergence as a professional and an international has been instructive, happily closer to symbiotic: His play for Canada improved with each new competitive level; in turn, his appearances for Canada boosted his profile, granting him better opportunities.

"It's helped me so much being on a bigger stage," Johnston said.

For many soccer fans, Johnston came into view three years ago when Canada hosted Costa Rica and Mexico in cold and snowy Edmonton. He was a revelation during the famed "Iceteca" win over Mexico in particular — defensively sound, an attacking threat, and a leader on and off the pitch.

In the heated days before the World Cup in Qatar in 2022, Celtic bit before his stock could rise even higher. Shortly before Canada's opening match against Belgium, Johnston spent four hours in Doha getting MRIs to pass the club's medical. 

"It was a lot going on at once," he said.

He had been cagey at a World Cup news conference when rumours of his impending move to Scotland first surfaced, confessing only that his phone had suddenly blown up. 

Now his career has followed — and with it, he hopes, Canada's reputation as a producer of all-world soccer talent.

He pointed to last summer's three-game gauntlet against the Netherlands, France, and Argentina as the sort of high-profile string that generations of Canadian players could only dream of experiencing.

"It keeps pushing the Canadian passport further up the ranks," Johnston said. "That's the whole point of growing the game in this country."

As if on cue, his teammates began pouring out of the hotel elevators behind him. A bus waited for them outside, ready to take them to train for Tuesday's home leg of their CONCACAF Nations League quarterfinal with now-familiar Suriname.

Asked how many caps he thought he might earn when he was young, Johnston laughed. "One? Maybe ten if I was lucky."

Instead, he's on 50.

"It's not lost on me, that number," he said, before he lifted himself out of his chair and set off to earn his 51st, knowing better than most what it means to be found.