Donegal man's World Cup adventure was 'a very memorable thing’

​A Donegal man had a once-in-a-lifetime experience at the World Cup at his home from home in Canada.

Damien McAteer from Lismonaghan, Letterkenny, has been living in Vancouver since 2013 and was employed as a FIFA Medic for seven games held in the Canadian City.

Canada’s first-ever World Cup victory, even sweeter on home soil, and Switzerland’s last 16 penalty shoot-out success over Colombia were two of the many highlights.

Advanced care paramedic Damien, a lifelong Liverpool supporter, also managed to bump into the likes of former manager Jürgen Klopp, Switzerland captain Granit Xhaka and FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

Damien was recently joined on holiday by his parents Madeline and Charlie - the long-serving secretary of St Eunan’s GAA club in Letterkenny - and his sister Nicola and his 10-year-old nephew Max.

A keen Gaelic footballer himself in his day, as well as having represented Ulster and Ireland at swimming, it’s come full-circle now for Damien doing the school runs and taking his and his wife Kat’s four children - Rory (12), Kian (10), Edie (8) and Charlie (6) - to various sports like basketball, ice hockey, floor hockey, swimming, Canadian (American) football and, “as some might call it, soccer.”

Damien attended Scoil Cholmcille and St Eunan’s College in his youth and qualified as a paramedic in 2008 and worked in Ardee, Co Louth, and then Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, and soon met Kat, who played netball.

Kat is Canadian-born to Irish parents from Bray, Co Wicklow, and Dublin. Damien and Kat married in 2012 before moving to her home place, the Burnaby suburb of Vancouver, the following year.

“Canada is very much home now,” Damien says, having been granted citizenship earlier this month.

“He will still frequently make light of the eight-hour time difference between there and home to rise to watch Liverpool games at 4:30am, and his Sunday evening phone calls home keep him in check with all the GAA and other goings-on at home.

Damien initially worked for the BC Ambulance, with the massive province of British Columbia 11 times the size of Ireland, which can feature 14-hour drives and, since qualifying as an advanced care paramedic (ACP), helicopter rescues.

Getting chosen as a FIFA Medic was a three-year process that involved 850 other applicants, an exam and interview process, with only nine positions available pitchside.

Canada had qualified for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and the 52,497-capacity Vancouver Stadium, known locally as BC, and the rest of the city were ready last month.

“The atmosphere and the noise were absolutely fantastic - just to be a part of it,” Damien tells DonegalLive from Vancouver. “Even from the very first night that Australia and Turkey came, that opening ceremony was just amazing to be around the noise, the atmosphere. People have their opinions about FIFA, but they're an extremely efficient organisation in the way they run things.

“Everything is just dialled down to the absolute second. Even the choreography of bringing out those two giant flags that are seen at every game, to the moment that teams were brought out onto the field, the national anthems, being able to sit beside the benches of the teams and watch Belgium’s Kevin De Bruyne or Youri Tielemans, or Mo Salah play in a World Cup for Egypt. Everything was amazing.”

The highest profile event from a work perspective was when Ismaël Koné, the Canadian midfielder, broke his leg in his side’s 6-0 win over Qatar.

Damien, who was on tunnel duty that evening, was part of the team under lead doctor Dr John MacLean, who served as the Chief Medical Adviser to the Scottish FA and worked with their senior squad from 1996 to 2021.

“Sitting there with all our equipment and all our gear ready to go and ready to respond to any incidents on the field itself,” was Damien’s role.

The Canadian team played their opener in Toronto, a 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina, before hammering Qatar 6-0 and losing 2-1 to Switzerland in Vancouver. That meant they were moved to Los Angeles, where they pipped South Africa 1-0 in the Round of 32 before eventually losing out 3-0 to Morocco in the last 16.

The locals really embraced the competition, although Damien’s only regret, as someone who can remember Italia 90 at home, was that the Irish team and their supporters didn’t make it.

“The Canadian team would’ve loved to stay here, but it was Switzerland who did, and they said they loved it,” he adds. “We had massive open-air festivals, viewing parties at multiple different venues around the city. Other municipalities that are based around Vancouver itself. The uptake was fantastic.

“They turned a lot of the area downtown into pedestrian zones and things along those lines. And just the uptake was amazing. So when the games came, the march in particular on Canada Day, they had 18,000 march to the game all in unison. That was pre-organised. They all came in with their flares and their smoke bombs and their red smoke and everything.”

Damien’s work down the years means he is on hand at the likes of ACDC and Rolling Stones gigs, as well as the local Vancouver Whitecaps, who compete in Major League Soccer.

Their standout name is Thomas Müller, the former German international who won 131 international caps and scored 45 goals between 2010 and 2024, winning the World Cup following the 1-0 victory over Argentina and Lionel Messi in 2014 at the Maracanã in Rio.

Damien has crossed paths with Müller frequently, and when he and Klopp were pitchside as pundits for German streaming company Magenta, Damien got the nod.

“I'm a big Liverpool fan,” Damien adds. “As soon as I saw Klopp, nothing would do me until I tried to get a picture and told him I loved him and told him thanks for everything he did for Liverpool.

“He was very complimentary about the great work medics do, which was nice.

“One other night we were in the tunnel and Gianni Infantino asked us for a photo as he had the FIFA photographers there.”

Damien, Canada and the rest of the world watched on as Spain won the competition. His memories of the 2026 World Cup are still just seeping in.

“Working in the line of work I do is not always easy,” he says. “It can be tough, but that’s what I signed up for. This last month and the World Cup, it's something when my career is finally over that I'll look back and go ‘this was a very memorable thing that I was involved in ’, and I was delighted to be involved in it. It was unbelievable.”