From ball boy to World Cup hopeful, Niko Sigur’s Canada journey comes full circle

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia – It was six years ago when Niko Sigur last stepped into BC Place, where Canada will begin its 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup campaign Tuesday night.

Born and raised in nearby Burnaby, British Columbia, Sigur was not in the stadium as a fan. He was grabbing errant balls as a ball boy during Canada’s Nations League qualifier on March 24, 2019.

The 4-1 win over French Guiana presented a chance for the 15-year-old Sigur to do what he always did: study and act like the grownup he wanted to become.

“I was 15 years old, but I want to see how would I play in that situation in a game like that. There was good intensity. And I always knew in the back of my mind that I could play there one day,” Sigur said, noting some of the people he watched are now his teammates.

“And here I am.”

Sigur returns to BC Place, the site of Canada and Honduras’ Group B opener, in a completely different position in life.

Just 21, his versatility and creativity with the ball could still turn heads throughout the Gold Cup. Canada’s past three Gold Cups have been launchpads for players now considered stars. Jonathan David led the tournament in scoring in 2019. Tajon Buchanan exploded into a starting role in 2021. And Moïse Bombito, among the best center backs in Concacaf, made his Canada debut in 2023.

Sigur has just five appearances for Canada, but this Gold Cup – beginning with his full-circle return to Vancouver – could present his chance to become Canada’s next star.

Canada’s Niko Sigur has made a great impression on manager Jesse Marsch. (Photo by Mark Blinch/Getty Images)

In Canada camps, Sigur’s tender age often feels like just a number. He moves with the air of a veteran, not a young player treading lightly as he tries to find his way.

His default setting is a narrowed scowl, focused solely on what’s ahead. Sigur treats every team activity, no matter how innocuous, as an opportunity to compete. Watching Sigur take part in virtual reality training exercises that stimulate the mind, his knees are constantly bent as if he’s waiting to prowl. Sigur curses loudly when he finds out teammates might have earned a better score than him in the exercises and demands the chance to go again.

He is serious, and serious about biting off more than most young players might. He was raised by his Croatian parents to be stern.

“My dad was always on me about my attitude,” Sigur said. “When I played, he would comment more on my body language and what I would say to a coach or teammate and not comment on my play as much.”

And so Sigur has acted like an adult even as, well, a child.

As a teenager playing for Mountain United FC, he saw his teammates try to play hero ball. He would lambast them, forcing them to take part in the kind of methodical build-up play that is entrenched in the Croatian soccer DNA.

“How I viewed the game from a young age was probably different than a lot of kids,” Sigur said. “If a guy wasn’t on the same page as me, I’d get frustrated.”

That attitude ostracized him. Not that he cared. He was content keeping to himself.

“In high school, you had guys doing typical high school things: Drinking, partying. But I wasn’t doing any of that. My obsession was getting better, even if that meant getting rid of friends that were no good to me and my life,” Sigur said.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, his final season of youth soccer was shut down. Sigur, naturally, did not follow suit.

Once he graduated high school, Sigur began working construction. He’d wake up just after 5 a.m. every day for work before heading straight to informal training sessions with local Canadian Premier League players and university players, the sweat of a day’s work still heavy on him. Many knew gathering as a group at that time in the summer of 2020, when so little was known about the virus, was a risk.

Sigur saw it as an opportunity to play with the kind of men he eventually wanted to overtake.

“My main focus is soccer. Always has been. Always will be,” he said, without a trace of doubt.

He eventually began skipping work to train. The construction job didn’t last long.

But it was that desire to improve and play against men that ended up fueling him. He would eventually join the Vancouver Whitecaps academy for a brief stint. Yet through that group of players, he was introduced to noted York University coach Carmine Isacco and an agent who eventually brought him to Europe for training opportunities. After a brief stop with Slovenia’s NK Radomlje, Sigur landed in Croatia with one of the country’s most famed clubs, Hajduk Split.

Sigur seemed on the path towards playing for Croatia’s senior team after debuting with the Under-21 side in 2023.

“I am extremely excited to represent Croatia, which is a true global football powerhouse,” Sigur said in a 2023 statement.

Yet when Jesse Marsch took over Canada in 2024, Sigur’s path took a detour. Marsch saw a player with immense potential who would bring something different to the midfield: remarkable intelligence to balance the team’s athleticism.

Marsch sold Sigur on Canada’s potential and Sigur’s own possible role ahead of the World Cup. Sigur made his one-time switch in August 2024. But Marsch needed Sigur to up the aggression in his game and rely less on his soccer IQ alone.

Canada manager Jesse Marsch has had success recruiting dual nationals like Niko Sigur (Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images)

“I’ll put it this way. He’s not telling you (about mistakes) one time so you get it right. He’s telling you so you never get it wrong. That’s how much he emphasizes his philosophies and his ideas and how he wants us to play,” Sigur said of Marsch.

It was a perfect fit. That’s the kind of attitude Sigur has long had, after all.

He brought that aggression on the field this season to Hajduk, where he became a regular starter under Gennaro Gattuso, who has since become Italy national team manager.

Some players wilt under intense managers. Sigur has been preparing his whole life for it.

“There was no relaxing,” Sigur said of playing for Gattuso. “He’s a very intense guy. He demands a lot for you.”

While he insists players, staff and fans at Hajduk didn’t judge him for switching from Croatia to Canada, throughout the country, he felt the wrath of other fans and national media.

“I felt a change in how they look at me. It became negative, how they write about me in the media, what they say about me, how the fans from other teams. Especially when I play fullback, I hear the stuff they say to me,” Sigur said, his scowl growing heavier. “Cursing about me and my family. What am I supposed to do? It’s my reality.”

The hate he hears from opposition fans has only emboldened his choice to play for Canada. He’s set on becoming a starter in the Gold Cup and parlaying that into more starts in the future.

“I think I’m probably going to get more responsibility, more minutes, let’s say maybe even a little bit of pressure on me, but it’s nothing I’m not used to,” Sigur said.

Sigur can pick apart opposition midfielders with intelligent playmaking. He was called off the bench to replace the injured Alphonso Davies in Canada’s third-place Nations League game against the U.S. And in a nearly full-strength Canada side in a 4-2 dismantling of Ukraine, Sigur made his first Canada start at right back.

Sigur ended up leading Canada with eight passes into the final third of the pitch. He is proof of concept of Marsch’s belief that players can be developed at the national team level, not just with their club.

“I think we all know he has big potential,” Marsch said wryly of Sigur.

Sigur’s self-confidence – “With my experience in Europe, playing with some of the players I’ve played with, my soccer intelligence is very high,” he said – has been matched internally by Canada’s coaching staff’s own belief in Sigur. Behind the scenes, Marsch and Co. are starting to see him as a viable starter come the World Cup. Should injuries hamper the team at fullback, it’s believed Sigur would be the first-choice solution in the starting XI. There’s also a very real possibility that if Davies starts at left midfield, Sigur could start at left back.

Sigur’s positional versatility is a boon to Marsch: Ismaël Koné’s game has been up and down for Canada as of late, as he’s struggled on the club side. Sigur could easily start in his central midfield role.

“If you can play more positions, then the coach trusts you in those positions. You have a bit of an advantage over other players, but at the same time, it can be difficult sometimes trying to switch your mindset into different responsibilities,” Sigur said.

If Sigur continues to push the tempo in Canada training and excel in a step up on the club side this summer, that would also aid his chances to start. It’s believed that there are multiple clubs in Belgium and the Netherlands monitoring Sigur for a possible summer transfer.

“I think it’s in Hajduk’s best interest to sell me at some point,” Sigur said. “It’s a matter of time. And I think I’m ready for it. I want it to make sense. I don’t want to go to a huge club and go on loan or sit on the bench. I want to play.”

Add it up and it’s time to start thinking about Sigur as a core piece of Marsch’s Canada at the 2026 World Cup.

Sigur could make that more likely with repeated strong performances at the Gold Cup, starting in Vancouver. When he steps on the field, Sigur will likely look back behind the Canada bench. He will remember himself at 15, studying eventual teammates.

“It’s a dream,” he said, finally smiling, “for sure.”

(Top photo: Mark Blinch/Getty Images)

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