Niko Sigur ready to contribute for Canada after betting on himself

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Midfielder Niko Sigur bet on himself when he left a comfortable situation playing U Sports soccer at York University to go to Europe to pursue a career in the professional game.

That move panned out for the 21-year-old from Burnaby, B.C. as he cut his teeth with the youth team of Slovenian club NK Radomlje before moving to Croatia and catching on with the youth academy of Hajduk Split, eventually signing a pro contract with its senior team.

Now Sigur is betting on himself again after recently filing a FIFA-approved one-time switch, turning down a chance to play for Croatia and pledging his allegiance to Canada. Sigur was called up by the Canadian men’s team for this month’s international window, which includes Tuesday’s friendly vs. Mexico in Texas. And while a nagging ankle injury means he’ll likely have to wait for his first cap, the young prospect by all accounts has a bright international career ahead of him with Les Rouges.

“It’s an amazing feeling being in camp. It’s something that I’ve wanted for a very long time,” Sigur told Sportsnet. “Just going back a few years, I can remember watching World Cup qualifiers in Toronto as a fan, and watching this team … It’s exciting. I’m excited that I can be a part of it, and I’m ready to contribute.”

Sigur showed a lot of promise in his first season in U Sports. Had he decided to continue his education and kept playing for York, he might have eventually been picked up by a team in MLS or the Canadian Premier League.

But when he had an opportunity to move to Slovenia, he jumped at the chance, even though there were no guarantees.

“It was an easy but also difficult decision to leave York. Easy in the sense that I knew what I wanted, which was to go to Europe. But even when the opportunity did present itself, it was still difficult because I came off a very good rookie year. But when I got the call, I just dropped everything,” Sigur recalled.

“I dropped out of school even before I had the trial for [NK Radomlje]. I pretty much just dropped everything because I knew that this chance wasn’t going to present itself again, and after the season I had with York, I thought it was a perfect time, and I was ready for the next step.”

The young Canadian’s career has been on an amazing trajectory ever since. Born to parents of Croatian descent, Sigur made his professional debut for Hajduk Split in Croatian’s first division last spring. Internationally, he started for Croatia at the 2023 UEFA Under-21 European Championship last summer and was being groomed for the senior team.

But he didn’t make the cut for Croatia’s final roster for this summer’s European Championship after being named to the team’s standby squad. That opened a window of opportunity for Canadian coach Jesse Marsch, who spoke to the industrious midfielder about representing his birth nation. In August, Sigur filed the necessary paperwork with FIFA after a summer spent soul-searching and pondering one important question.

“After the Euros, I just took a step back. I asked myself, ‘What do I really want?’ I was hoping I’d get called in for the Euros, but after it didn’t happen, I had a deep think. I talked to my parents and my family, and I just thought that this was the right time to make the switch for Canada. I could have come into camp for these friendlies without being locked in, but I didn’t want to go back and forth between the nations. So, I just decided that I wanted to make the one-time switch and just be a part of Canada, and not look back,” Sigur explained.

He later added: “I definitely had people in my ear telling me that this is going to affect my career going forward. That it’s just easier to play for Croatia. That I’m going to have to travel so much more. There’s going to be a lot of sleepless nights now, there’s going to be more pressure. But for me, I’m glad I made the decision to play for Canada.”

So is Marsch. The Canadian coach described Sigur, who joined the Vancouver Whitecaps youth system at age 14, as a technical player with a high football IQ and someone who can play in several positions. The expectation is that he’ll fit seamlessly in as a member of Canada’s deep core of midfielders.

Hired by Canada Soccer in May, Marsch has hit the ground running since taking over as the full-time coach, leading the team to an historic fourth-place finish in its debut at Copa América in the summer. An impressive draw away to France and the country’s first win over the United States on American soil since 1957 have been other highlights of his tenure.

Achieving positive results on the pitch is only one part of Marsch’s job description. His main objective is to build up the team so it can be a competitive force when Canada co-hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Strengthening and widening the player pool by convincing dual-national players to represent Canada can help him reach that goal. The hope is that others will follow Sigur into the Canadian national team program.

“It’s absolutely important. We want to maximize our player pool the best that we can,” Marsch told Sportsnet. “It’s like recruiting in college, and we’re almost treating it that way. We have ways of putting together different recruitment packages, and we’re really just in the phases of doing that.

“I’ve spent the last month and a half just getting to know some of [the dual national targets], and just speaking to them. Seeing what’s in their hearts, where their family is from, where they’ve lived and grown up, and where they’ve been and where they’ve played and who they played for. And asking them, ‘Okay, so where does Canada sit in all this?’ And I’ve been surprised to hear almost every single one of them say that Canada feels like home to them.”

Marsch wouldn’t reveal any specific names, but he is confident that there will be more players like Sigur in the near future who will decide to play for Canada.

“I think we have a good chance with quite a few of them. I kind of have them into three buckets. There are players who I think can come in and make an immediate impact in our team. Then there’s players I think who will be more like depth players but can also still push to be starters in this group,” Marsch said.

“And then there’s young players and telling them that we like them, telling them that they’re developing, telling them that we want them in our program, and telling them that we’re going to make our youth national team program more robust and give them more opportunity to engage in what we’re doing with our national team across the board. And then preparing them to continue to ascend, to be part of the first team.”

It’s a delicate balancing act that Marsch has to pull off. On the one hand, the nature of actively recruiting a player means he has to be somewhat aggressive. But on the other hand, he doesn’t want to pressure them too much and run the risk of scaring them off.

Previous Canadian coach John Herdman had some success with dual nationals during his five-year run in charge of the men’s team. His style leaned to the more aggressive side, while Marsch has adopted a more casual approach, often relying on people on the ground who are closer to the player to put in a good word for him and Canada.

“John did a great job with some of these dual nationals. Even talking to some of them now, you could see that John used a lot of energy and pressure to kind of force them to think about it. And it worked with some of them, no doubt. … But I’m a little bit different than John,” Marsch offered.

This is serious business for Marsch, who leaves no stone unturned in going after players such as Sigur.

“We’re in the process of making videos so that they can see what it looks like. That’s a good scouting tool to have, to say, ‘Look how great you fit into what we’re doing.’ With each and every situation, I have to be as open and honest and excited about the possibility of what it would be like if they were in our team and tell them what the challenges would be, what the benefits would be, where the team is, and where we’re going. The more real you can be with them, then the more sure they can be of the reasons why it’s the right decision,” Marsh said.

“From my perspective, that puts the onus on them because it gives them something to really think about. That’s what I’ve tried to do, more than anything, is not recruit them like they’re the greatest player and they’re gonna be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to Canadian soccer. It’s more, this is what this can be like, this is where we’re going. Here’s how you would fit in, here’s how you would enjoy this, and here’s how it would be good for you and actually help bolster your club career, as well.”

John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 25 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer. TFC Republic can be found here.

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