1976–1996 Canada's first under-20 soccer squad was created in 1976 as Canada's response to the newly created world youth championship. The team failed to qualify for the inaugural tournament in 1977 in Tunisia, but they qualified for the following tournament two years later in Japan. They finished last in their group with two points, but they did manage to defeat Portugal 3–1. The next time the team qualified for a World youth Championship was in 1985, in the USSR, again they came last in their group with only one point. In the 1987 WYC in Chile, Canada's under-20 soccer team put up a good effort scoring four goals, and tying Italy, however they still did not manage to get out of the group stage. According to Canada Soccer's record book, many of the squads from this era were actually classified as under-19 at the time.
1997–2004 In 1997, after failing to qualify for four
World Youth Championships (as the event was known until 2005) in a row, Canada made it past the group stage. The team progressed to the second round after a 2–1 win against Hungary in which a young
Dwayne De Rosario scored a goal. They lost the round of 16 game against Spain 2–0. After missing the tournament in 1999, Canada qualified for
Argentina 2001 after winning the qualifying tournament based on home soil in
Vancouver,
British Columbia. At the finals, they finished last and were eliminated from a group including Brazil, Germany and Iraq. Canada once again appeared in the 2003 FIFA World Youth Championship in
United Arab Emirates. They qualified to the round of 16 where they blanked Burkina Faso 1–0, and in a rematch against 1997 conquerors Spain, Canada lost in the quarter-finals.
Iain Hume scored three goals for Canada including a direct free kick against Spain while
Atiba Hutchinson was an impressive performer in midfield.
2005–present At the
2005 FIFA World Youth Championships in the
Netherlands, Canada were eliminated in the group stage after tying once and losing twice. One bright side of the tournament was
Jaime Peters' and
Marcel De Jong's goals. In the build-up to the
2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, as the tournament came to be known, Canada's defeated Brazil in the first game of a three-game series, winning 2- in front of 14 000+ at
Commonwealth Stadium in
Edmonton on May 19, 2006.
David Edgar and
Will Johnson scored and Stephen Lumley made goal-line clearance to preserve Canada's first win over a Brazilian men's team at any level. Canada lost the remaining two matches 3–1. Despite an impressive run in friendlies leading up to the competition, Canada went winless in first round play without scoring a goal on home soil. ==Results and fixtures==