INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Ten days ago, Ismaël Koné suffered a horrific broken leg in front of 52,497 fans at BC Place in Vancouver and watched his World Cup end in the blink of an eye.But on Sunday, he was again alongside his Canadian teammates, and the midfielder, who cannot walk without crutches, danced.Koné swayed deliriously to music in the middle of Canada’s dressing room.“He seemed to have recovered from his injury quite quickly,” defender Luc De Fougerolles joked.With the sun breaking through after a grey Southern California afternoon, Koné and the rest of the Canadian men’s national team became, as head coach Jesse Marsch said in the post-match speech, heroes, elevated into Canadian history.After 91 minutes of tense soccer in Canada’s first-ever knockout-round game in the men’s World Cup (the biggest sports event in the world, it is worth reminding curious Canadians), Stephen Eustaquio delivered a thrilling added-time goal to send South Africa home and Canada into the round of 16. Teammates stormed the pitch, then they danced in their locker room. They could dance because they had accomplished one of their many goals: deliver a moment that would change soccer in Canada.“You guys are Canadian heroes,” Marsch said to his players huddled around him on the pitch with the same emotion any soccer fan from Port McNeil to Rivière-au-Renard would have provided. “To the future children of this country who play this sport, this sport has a big future because of you guys.”Canada’s 1-0 win over South Africa was not just a soccer story; it was a story that will shine brightly in the annals of Canadian sports history.That’s a place the men’s national team has rarely been. But they are never leaving, now.Canada head coach Jesse Marsch told his players they were Canadian heroes after their round of 32 win. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)“For Canadian sports history, it’s going to be a moment where you’re going to know where you were when that moment happened,” defender Alistair 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 when you think about it.”To properly understand – nah, savour – this result, you have to appreciate where this sport and this team were not too long ago.Overlooked in the Canadian sports landscape, soccer was the sport that people from other countries played. It was the sport that more kids played than any other team sport, but never as a proper Canadian pastime. Years of poor results saw the national team fall as low as 120th in the FIFA rankings in 2017.Let that marinate for a moment: nine years ago, Canada were closer to the bottom of the world of men’s soccer than the top.