Co-hosts Canada salvaged a draw from their Group B opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina – and a deserved one, too, after missing a succession of chances before restoring parity.

Here are our Scout Notes from the game, featuring match stats from our World Cup Toolkit page.

CANADA 1-1 BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

• Goals: Larin | Lukic
• Assists: P David | Kolasinac
• Shot on target bonus: Lukic
• Tackle bonus: Tahirovic
• Top points scorers: Lukic (9), Larin (8), Kolasinac (7)

TEAM STATS

PLAYER STATS

SCOUT NOTES

• This wasn’t too dissimilar a game to Korea Republic v Czechia.
• Bosnia-Herzegovina, like Czechia, offered little from open play, bar the one-on-one chance that Ermedin Demirovic ($6.2m) fluffed. And like Czechia, nearly all of their threat stemmed from set plays. In fact, seven of their eight attempts, including Jovo Lukic’s ($5.6m) headed goal, came from a dead-ball situation.
• Canada, meanwhile, were, for large chunks of the game, as profligate as Korea Republic were earlier today. Through a combination of poor finishing, excellent Bosnian defending and a slice of bad luck, it looked as though they would fall victim to a smash-and-grab performance. But as with Korea Republic, perseverance paid off.
• Jonathan David ($7.0m) and strike partner Tani Oluwaseyi ($4.9m) wasted good first-half chances, while full-back Richie Laryea ($3.9m) had an effort spectacularly cleared onto the bar by Sead Kolasinac ($4.3m). Centre-half Derek Cornelius ($4.0m) had an attempt of his own hooked away from near the goal line.
• Jesse Marsch’s substitutions paid dividends, with Ali Ahmed ($4.9m), Promise David ($5.4m) and Cyle Larin ($6.2m) all having an impact. The latter two combined for Larin’s deflected equaliser. Many had expected Larin to partner Jonathan David but he had to be content with a cameo, with the 1% owned David having an afternoon to forget.
• Two corner takers, the budget midfielders Stephen Eustaquio ($5.0m) and Ivan Basic ($5.1m), carved out the most key passes in this game, with three and five, respectively. Yet again, however, the elusive ‘key pass bonus’ wasn’t handed out by the FIFA game-makers. It now looks very much like ‘big chances created’ is the metric being used for this.
• We did see a ‘tackle bonus’ for the first time, however. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Benjamin Tahirovic ($5.3m) hit the required threshold.
• Left-back Kolasinac and centre-half Nikola Katic ($3.8m) impressed individually for the visitors, although collectively, Bosnia-Herzegovina did look like they could be vulnerable to a side more potent than Canada, who lacked the killer edge in the final third.
• Switzerland, the Group B favourites, won’t have lost any sleep over watching these two teams. They’ll expect to dominate Bosnia-Herzegovina in Round 2 (and they have more attacking quality to exploit the chances given up on Friday), while their set-piece takers and big men up from the back could prosper against Canada in Round 3.
• If you’re an owner of a Canada player, especially 4.8%-owned goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau ($4.0m), you’re obviously holding now for Round 2, when an iffy-looking Qatar visit Vancouver. Crepeau didn’t have a great deal to do but was out smartly to snuff out Demirovic’s chance.
• The most-owned outfielders for these two teams, Alphonso Davies ($4.9m) and Edin Dzeko ($6.1m), didn’t make it onto the field. Davies’ unavailability was known about, while Dzeko had missed the last two friendlies but has at least returned to training.