He’s the leading scorer in England while nearing Canada’s caps record. Cyle Larin is ‘just getting started’ - Toronto Star

On break from a prolific season in England, one of Canada's World Cup heroes will be presented with the key to the City of Brampton on Sunday.

How does the Bagsman travel? Pretty damn light these days.

For so much of the past four years, Cyle Larin has traversed the Atlantic with an excess of everything. The stuff you’d prefer not to be carrying at all, he’d pack up and haul home when his country called. If airline scales measured uncertainty, Larin would have been rinsed of thousands in overweight fees by now. Rustiness piled up and had to be dragged along, too. Negativity filled any remaining air pockets of suitcases.

Last weekend’s continental crossing, though, was unlike those … unlike any that came before, actually. Larin breezed past bag drop altogether, then floated featherlike aboard before turning left. His passenger status is so elite it wasn’t even listed.

He left Europe as the continent’s most prolific scorer. Seven times already in this young club season, the social media accounts of Southampton FC have screamed out graphics of Larin with his nesh and now-viral nickname in all caps: The Brampton Bagsman. This is the way to travel.

“I mean, it definitely feels good,” Larin smiles. “I just want to carry it over here and keep that form going. I have to keep doing the same things I’ve been doing in Southampton with Canada. On the pitch, off the pitch, it’s important to carry that on here. But coming into a (Canada) camp … it’s probably the best form I’ve been in.”

Larin is six-foot-two and built to fill that frame vertically and horizontally. Yet his words have always come out of him narrow and lean, almost reluctantly. On a hectic Wednesday evening in the loud lobby of Toronto’s Sheraton, you worry if the iPhone’s voice recorder will even catch them. Still, they’re striking.

He’s 31 now, six caps shy of a century and just 10 off Atiba Huthinson’s all-time men’s record. In club soccer terminology, this is Larin’s 14th season as a Canadian international. Hell of a sample size to survey before declaring he’s never felt better. Hell of a moment, too.

“As long as I’m playing at the highest level and available, I’ll always be here,” Cyle Larin, pictured at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, said of representing Canada.

Coach Jesse Marsch and Canada’s men are back here to turn the page. Having been written off enough times to fill a novella, Larin is not just with them but the one licking his thumb. He gave this team (and indeed this country) liftoff for its historic World Cup summer in early June and, back at BMO Field Saturday night against Chile, helped signal the changing of the seasons — and World Cup cycles — by playing a big part in Jonathan David’s decisive goal for a 1-0 Canada win.

“For me, I’m just getting started,” Larin tells the Star. “Another cycle? If I’m playing at the top level I’ll be scoring goals for a very, very long time. You don’t have control over everything; I don’t. Sometimes players come, tactics change. But as long as I’m playing at the highest level and available, I’ll always be here.”

Tactics come up early and often. Systems, too. As light as Larin’s words land, repetition rams home that he feels what works so well at Southampton is an emphasis and identity not shared by Marsch. Canada’s World Cup odyssey began with Larin’s unforgettable equalizer off the bench against Bosnia, quickly followed by the 6-0 hammering of Qatar when he scored again. Doubters silenced. Otherwise on the game’s biggest stage, though, shortcomings in attack that have been a hallmark of the Marsch era were all too apparent.

CYLE LARIN TIES THE GAME FOR CANADA! pic.twitter.com/56YfnmtMQT

“Every team plays different,” Larin reckons. “Every coach has a different system. In the national team I don’t think we have a problem. The personnel we have — me, Johnny (David), Promise (David) — we can score goals. It’s getting the chances to score goals. It’s different when you get the chances and we miss it. I don’t think that’s the case. It’s a work in progress.”

Progress, for too long, felt a precarious thing for Larin. After firing Canada to its World Cup return in 2022, his club career turned chaotic. After four mostly settled years at Besiktas he became a vagrant with five moves spanning Turkey, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and then England.

The fifth was the charm. He’s settled and thrived at Southampton, the club currently in the second tier of English soccer. The Larins love it. His six-year-old twins are enjoying school in England. Wife Shalaine and their one-year-old are finally stationary, too. The Brampton Bagsman may have entered English soccer’s lexicon, but the luggage sets have been mostly put in storage.

Southampton’s Cyle Larin of Southampton wheels away to celebrate after scoring against Bristol City on Sept. 12.

Ironically, he’ll have a hefty memento on the return trip. On Sunday night he’ll be presented with the key to the City of Brampton, after earlier in the day multiple sports fields in the city are named after World Cup heroes. Count Larin, David, Tajon Buchanan, Liam Millar, Jonathan Osorio and Jayden Nelson among them.

Putting Brampton — and Bagsman — into the lingo of European soccer is a source of pride for Larin. And envy for his fellow Bramptonians.

“That’s hard! I wished I could have done that first,” laments Promise David, who has joined him on England’s south coast with rival Brighton. “Cyle can’t help it. The guy is doing what he does. Every time I open (Instagram) or get a Sofascore notification, I see his name. Damn, this guy got another one!? It’s something he’s been doing his whole career.”

Cyle Larin, left, is six caps shy of a century and just 10 off Atiba Huthinson’s all-time Canadian men’s record.

Larin has no designs on stopping, but the future is in the picture. Horses are a distraction and passion. His father, Robert Boreland, has worked at Woodbine racetrack for 40 years. Canada’s post-World Cup future kicked off Saturday, and Sunday is Breeders’ Stakes day. The Larins have a couple of runners in smaller races before the big one.

“They’re just like athletes, horses,” he says. “They train every day, get massages, acupuncture, injuries. They train hard for one race, one day. I grew up around them and it’s just very interesting for me.”

At Woodbine this weekend, they’ll debate how much weight the hopefuls carry. Keep an eye on Larin’s. They’re surely travelling light.

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Joe Callaghan is a Toronto-based sports and feature writer and a contributor for the Star. Reach him via email: joecallaghan84@hotmail.com or follow him on X: @JoeCallaghan84.