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The US version of the tournament’s opening ceremony helpfully focused on one of its main themes: aspirational consumerismThe 2026 World Cup: a festival of football; a moment to revel in upsets, spectacular goals, stars made, and reputations ruined; a test of Didier Deschamps’s unshakable addiction to Adrien Rabiot. But also: a celebration of America; a chance for Fox Sports to prove the haters wrong; a social experiment to see how long Thierry Henry can last on set with Alexi Lalas before resorting to physical violence. “This is going to be filled with American fans,” Lalas shrieked as Los Angeles Stadium began to swell with spectators before the US’s opening match against Paraguay. “This is going to be bursting at the seams with America!”But where was the pomp, the bombast, the Americana? The US opening ceremony – the third and final installment in the trio of launch parties for this supertanker of a World Cup – didn’t quite live up to the Lalasian hype. This was a ceremony with all the charm of Rob Stone in his pocket square fake-smiling as he says the immortal words, “Brazil v Morocco, live tomorrow from New York New Jersey, brought to you by Verizon”: a ceremony that felt oddly flat, but was trying all the same. It was almost as if Fifa had absorbed all the pre-tournament criticism and decided: “You know what? We just can’t be bothered.” But Friday’s launch did still offer a sense for how this tournament will play out as a cultural spectacle. The early verdict: this is a World Cup built above all to accommodate the insatiable needs of American TV. Fox Sports is not simply the host broadcaster for this World Cup; it is the tournament’s very soul. If that’s the type of sentence that gives you hives, the next five weeks will best be watched on mute (or Telemundo).Between the bloated 48-team format, the number of co-hosts, and the vast distances separating the host cities, sprawl is the theme of this World Cup, and Fox is doing its bit for the cause. There was not, truth be told, a lot of ceremony in this opening ceremony. Three songs spread out over the course of an hour didn’t give viewers a lot to get excited about, but Fox took those paltry raw materials and padded the opening day out into a bullying statement of intent about its plans for the tournament. Fox has brought in Rebecca Lowe, better known to US soccer fans as the host of NBC’s Premier League coverage, to add class and an(other) English accent to this summer’s on-screen proceedings. Part of what makes the NBC coverage work is that it is quick and succinct. But quick and succinct is not the Fox way. As the marathon lead-in to the opening ceremony began it rapidly became clear that even for Lowe, keeping Fox from its own worst instincts is going to be tough.Despite being hours long, the whole production felt scattered, rushed, and unfocused – as if it was put together by a social media addict with both a five-second attention span and an endless appetite for “content” (which it probably was). This was World Cup coverage as an interminable series of TikTok zaps. “The American Outlaws are outside the stadium!” Lowe enthused over footage of a few jersey-clad dads in wraparound sunglasses weakly hooting on an LA side street. “We have two whole hours to go until kickoff,” she added, and it felt like a threat. There was a profile of USMNT super fan Eagleman (“When I put the eagle mask on, I feel I can let loose and be Eagleman”), a doctor who spent 21 years on active duty with the US air force. “The US military, always so supportive of US soccer,” Stone, sharing anchor duties with Lowe, gravely noted.Brandishing an American football, Patrick Mahomes appeared on screen for a leaden segment about “this strange sport that the rest of the world calls football, but we call soccer”, a “joke” about the tedious soccer v football debate that Fox appears determined to re-inflict on its blameless viewers at least once a day over the course of the summer. A story looking back at the 1994 tournament began: “Gas was only a dollar a gallon, and there was only one type of milk” – another blow struck for the Murdoch media empire against the oat milk wokes. Lowe directed viewers’ attention to YouTube, where Nick DiGiovanni, Fox’s resident World Cup chef, had just hailed the chipa cheeseburger he put together for the US-Paraguay match as “one of his best inventions ever” – and who are any of us, not being familiar until this week with the existence of Chef Nick or his body of work, to disagree? Unfortunately, persistent outdoor audio problems meant viewers were deprived of the totality of Elmo and Cookie Monster’s answers when asked by red carpet reporter Charissa Thompson what the World Cup means to them. Down on the Los Angeles Stadium pitch, Landon Donovan hard launched his violent new head of hair.One of the major challenges for Fox this summer is figuring out how to get the best out of its crowded roster of on-air “talent”. The network’s solution, it seems, is to have multiple sets in multiple locations, with each panel taking turns to discuss the same stuff. In the lead-up to Friday’s ceremony we heard reminiscences from Lowe, Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Lalas, holding court from a perch in Los Angeles Stadium, about the 1994 World Cup, the last to be held on American soil; then we heard from Stu Holden, Carli Lloyd, and Tom Rinaldi, speaking from a parking lot outside the stadium, on the same subject; finally Stone, Donovan, and Clint Dempsey, on the stadium field, got to trot out their own set of lifeless anecdotes about the summer of ’94.The promotion of James Corden’s “fun” late night show was a persistent theme of the day’s programming. I counted at least three separate occasions in the buildup to last night’s USMNT opener on which Lowe threw to Zlatan for his thoughts on Corden and Sweden’s greatest ever goalscorer responded with words like, “I like him, I love him, he’s funny,” an evaluation that became less and less convincing with each repetition. James Corden: so funny Fox needs to remind its viewers every 10 minutes that he is funny. (Lalas, for his part, has declared the carpool karaoke king a “full-kit wanker”: begrudgingly one must offer respect to a man who is prepared to go on air and trash his employer’s star comedy recruit.)Fox obliged long-time fans pining for the old hits by offering up some signature mispronunciations: there were several renderings of Paraguay as “Parag-way”, Pochettino came out as “Paunchettino” at one point, and no one seemed to know what to do with “Herzegovina”. But this is all part of the Fox World Cup charm: we all come together, from across the globe, and agree to pronounce “Paraguay” however the hell we want.The early social media hype this World Cup has been all about the raw spectacle of foreigners encountering America for the first time (Lamine Yamal in a Walmart! Englishmen at the deli! Germans eating Chipotle! DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION), and it seems depressingly inevitable that brands, as much as players and fans, will be at the center of the action throughout the tournament. Commercials are everywhere this World Cup, including during the hydration breaks. Friday’s “innovation” was to make it virtually impossible for the casual viewer to tell where the ads stopped and events on the field – the pre-match ceremony, the match itself – began. Eventually they all bled into one another, creating a ghastly mashup in which the Rinaldi “color” segments (“This summer we’re citizens of an interior geography – the United States of Being”), the airless paeans to the glory of America and global unity, and the weird little segments about people refurbishing old fussball tables and playing Cristiano Ronaldo up front for some reason (perhaps a sly comment on the aging Portuguese great’s wooden finishing?) melted into cable TV’s standard carousel of ads for semaglutides, SUVs, game shows, and medication for moderate to severe ulcerative colitis. Everything in this World Cup is designed to be an ad, or at least to feel like one: is it a Matthew McConaughey voiceover about the world soccer family, or a subtle promo for Michelob Ultra, sponsor of the Michelob Ultra Pitchside Club in Santa Monica? Maybe it’s both.The ceremony proper got under way. “Welcome to the USA,” announced a raspy male voice in the stadium over a stylized map of the lower 48 states – a line that was presumably designed to convey hospitality, but ended up sounding more like the kind of thing you might hear in an ICE video playing in the passport line at the airport. Welcome to the USA: please leave your drugs, lies, tweets, opinions, and unlawful immigrant intent at the door. Future and Tyla, two singers I 100% had heard of before Googling them on Friday morning, performed their track Game Time. “Twenty seconds to game time,” they sang with more than an hour to go until kick-off. At some point there appeared a series of signs for “Route 66”, “Las Vegas”, “Holly”, and “Wood” on the pitch that looked like they’d been dragged in from a local elementary school production – a pleasingly half-assed artistic effort that summoned the spirit of Left Shark, thereby reconnecting this World Cup to the last big curtain raiser Katy Perry performed at a sporting event. Heritage matters.In a ceremony of little substance, the only real highlight was the performance from Lisa, Anitta, and Rema of Goals, a song with a gurgling bassline and a refrain (“My fatty, my fit, my friends, my whip”) that helpfully centers what the American World Cup is really all about: aspirational consumerism. Fox cut back to the main studio as the song’s final bars drifted into the Inglewood air. “My nether regions are still vibrating from the bass, wow!” Lalas exclaimed, to Henry’s visible disgust – one of several vaguely porny verbal shots that the man Ibrahimovic calls “Alexis” has already managed to get off over the tournament’s opening 48 hours. The chemistry between Kate Abdo and her all-male panel is part of what makes CBS’s Champions League coverage so successful. Whatever hopes Fox may harbor of replicating that kind of wink-wink on-set flirtation over the course of this World Cup have suffered a seemingly fatal blow on first contact with Lalas’s genitals. Above all the World Cup is about delivering, and the early evidence suggests that what the Big L will be delivering this summer is regular updates about the state of his junk.Flags held aloft in a circle, small children, hand holding: these are the key themes that any World Cup opening ceremony must hit, but we didn’t get a glimpse of them until the headline act took the stage in this oddly muted, phoned-in show’s final minutes. Perry gripped the hand of a small child and began to belt out the lines from Wonder, which the r/katyheads subreddit assures me is the best song off her 2024 album 143. At least, it seemed like she was belting the lines out. On TV the sound was distant and muffled, as if Perry was singing inside a bottle. “What a moment!” Lowe purred at the song’s conclusion. And she was right: if this World Cup opening ceremony was anything, it was above all a series of moments.

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‘High-handed and extremely unfair,’ government saysOfficial note of protest sent calling for a reviewGhana’s government has described Canada’s decision to deny Thomas Partey a visa for his country’s World Cup game against Panama on Wednesday as “high-handed and extremely unfair”.Ghana’s foreign ministry said it understood the decision to be based on pending criminal proceedings in Britain. The 32-year-old Partey, a former Arsenal midfielder who plays for Villarreal, faces allegations of rape and sexual assault in Britain. He has denied the charges.Partey is with the rest of the Ghana squad in Boston and will be eligible to play in their subsequent Group L matches against England in that city and against Croatia in Philadelphia.Ghana’s foreign ministry said it had dispatched an official note of protest requesting that Canada review its decision. “The government of the Republic of Ghana expresses strong reservations following the high-handed and extremely unfair decision by Canada,” it said. “While respecting Canada’s sovereign right to enforce its immigration laws, Ghana considers that reliance on unproven charges in the absence of a judicial determination raises fundamental questions of fairness and proportionality.”A spokesperson for Canada’s immigration, refugees and citizenship said on Friday that the country had been consistent that hosting major events does not change immigration laws. “Every person seeking to come to Canada is assessed individually, based on the facts available and the law that applies,” the spokesperson said.Partey’s case is the latest immigration-related controversy to flare at the World Cup, which is being co-hosted by Canada, the United States and Mexico. The US refused entry this week to the Somali referee Omar Artan, who had been due to officiate at the tournament.Upon returning to Somalia, Artan described the visa decision as a matter of “fate” and urged fellow Somalis not to lose heart over it.

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The smallest nation ever to compete in the tournament celebrate the long adventure that got them there, and remember those who cannot be there to enjoy it with themAngelo Cijntje can look back now and smile. It was September 2023 and Curaçao’s trip from Trinidad to Martinique for a Concacaf Nations League game had been complicated on matchday by the lack of a charter flight. “A small propeller plane had to shuttle back and forth, flying players over in groups of six,” Cijntje, the performance coach, says. “The starting XI made it on time, but the subs came in while the game was under way. Their luggage didn’t make it, so they had nothing but their boots, shin pads and maybe a pair of socks.”Wouter Jansen, Curaçao’s team coordinator, was also part of that trip. “It’s worthy of a film,” he says. “Those are the kind of adventures you never forget.”Curaçao are about to embark on unforgettable adventures of a very different kind. Remarkably, less than three years after that propeller plane made its way across the Caribbean Sea for the team to lose 1-0 in front of 913 people, they face Germany in Houston on Sunday in their first World Cup match. It marks the end of a long and not always smooth journey.It is one that began in earnest in about 2003 when Cijntje and Jansen, then playing in the Dutch second division, got a call from the president of the Netherlands Antilles football federation, which included Curaçao as a Dutch colony. Jean Francisca had been scouting players with Curaçaoan roots and spotted that Cijntje and Jansen were born in Willemstad, the capital. On the phone he outlined an ambition to qualify for a major tournament. Both signed up but what they found in Willemstad on their first call-up offers another indication of how far things have come.“The hotel wasn’t properly arranged, the sessions weren’t structured and we didn’t have training kits,” Cijntje says. “I’d be training in red socks, the player next to me in blue, one in red shorts, another in something else – one wearing Beltona, another maybe Nike. It was a bit of everything. Those were the first steps.”The project gathered pace when Curaçao left the Netherlands Antilles in 2010 to become an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The following year Curaçao became a Fifa member and from 2015 several Dutch coaches were appointed, starting with Patrick Kluivert, whose mother is Curaçaoan. More Dutch-born players joined, including Netherlands youth internationals such as Eloy Room, who had a deep connection with Curaçao, his father’s country.When Room was young, his mum gave him a book about Curaçao’s sporting history that featured Ergilio Hato, a goalkeeper who in 1952 was part of the first Netherlands Antilles team to play at the Olympics. “I would read that book every night,” says Room, an aspiring goalkeeper then and his country’s World Cup No 1 now. “I told my mother: ‘It would be great if I could become a legend for Curaçao too.’”He has managed that. Hato inspired generations – the national stadium in Willemstad bears his name – and Room made Hato’s nickname, Pantera Negra (Black Panther), his first tattoo. “Every time I look at it, it gives me a boost,” he says.Curaçao is the smallest nation, by population (about 156,000) and land area (171 square miles), to have qualified for a World Cup. Cijntje and Jansen joined the backroom staff in 2022, but their spell has not been without hiccups. That year the former Feyenoord and Ajax player Dean Gorré, whose son Kenji is part of the World Cup squad, became the technical director and he says a period of board instability created problems.“Hotel rooms were sometimes not paid, with players occasionally even having to pay for their flight tickets upfront,” he says. “It was a low point, but it also made the squad more resilient and tighter as a group. Nothing could faze them any more.”Dick Advocaat’s appointment as head coach in January 2024 marked another turning point. “More resources were invested in the national team,” Cijntje says, “with sponsors involved and better conditions as a result, which had positive knock-on effects, such as attracting more players like [PSV’s] Armando Obispo and Tahith Chong [of Sheffield United, the only player in the squad born in Curaçao].”Curaçao were well prepared for World Cup qualifying and had an advantage with the co-hosts, the United States, Mexico and Canada, taking places automatically. “That became a real trigger for all of us, like: ‘If there’s a chance to reach the World Cup, it’s now,’” Room says.Qualification was secured via a 0-0 draw in Jamaica, with Gorré in temporary charge while Advocaat was absent for family reasons. Players and staff celebrated with a few hundred supporters who had travelled to Jamaica and were welcomed back in Willemstad on an open-top bus that carried them through streets lined with tens of thousands of fans.The squad is close-knit, embodied in how they honour Jairzinho Pieter, a goalkeeper who died of a heart attack while away on international duty in 2019. “He was the one who always brought the atmosphere,” Room says.Room explains that Pieter led their daily prayer, something they do now with the captain, Leandro Bacuna, laying a necklace that belonged to Pieter in the huddle. “His passing was very heavy at the time and it is still very difficult,” Room says.“That made the dream of reaching the World Cup come even more to life, because it was also truly his dream. It gave us even more motivation.“I truly believe that in the deciding match against Jamaica, Pieter was with me, because the ball hit the crossbar and the post – it just wouldn’t go in. People in Curaçao also say that Pieter was there, alongside Ergilio Hato. We basically had three men in goal.”The team’s spirit is rooted in humility. “We just take regular commercial flights and wait at the baggage carousel for our suitcases to arrive,” says Jansen. In hotels, the players like to mingle with other guests, so when Advocaat once suggested a specially prepared meal in a meeting room, they opted to join the all-inclusive buffet. “They don’t mind when people want to take photos with them either,” says Jansen. “That’s part of who we are.”The openness became clear when Fifa asked Curaçao what requirements they had for their World Cup stay. “We don’t have any,” was Jansen’s reply. He was told a separate entrance could be arranged at the hotel and room keys prepared in advance. “I said: ‘All of that isn’t necessary,’” Jansen says. “We’re just used to walking in through the reception in the lobby and if we have to wait a bit, that’s no problem. We’re used to hotels where the rooms still need to be prepared. And nobody complains. That took them [Fifa] a bit by surprise.”But what about security, Fifa then asked. “Security?” Jansen responded. “We really don’t need security; we’re more than happy to give out an autograph.”Curaçao sprung another surprise when Fifa inquired about when open training sessions for media and fans should be planned. “Honestly, everyone is welcome with us,” Jansen replied. “And the public can even come on to the pitch after training.”At Curaçao’s base in Boca Raton, Florida, family and friends are allowed to stay. “Because it will be such a unique moment, we wanted to allow everyone to bring their relatives,” Jansen says. “We go there with a smile and leave with a smile. We’ve already won the World Cup just by being there. Some people think our setup is unprofessional but I’m like: ‘No, within our own limitations, we are actually very professional.’ Because we truly do everything together. That’s what makes it great.”In February Advocaat stepped down to be with his ill daughter and was replaced by Fred Rutten. But when her situation improved, a push gathered momentum to bring Advocaat back and he returned in May.Reaching the World Cup will have a significant impact for Curaçao. Gorré, who is focused on developing high-performance structures, says it will lift football development and much beyond. “It has already had an impact on tourism and that will only increase,” Gorré says.Cijntje also expects wider benefits, saying: “The realisation may start to sink in that the impossible is possible, if you go for it and work hard for it. I think it will be an inspiration for the next generation.”

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The United States are no longer a workmanlike outfit built on grit and grind – and Mauricio Pochettino says they are ‘winning a lot of fans’To find a precedent for the United States’ win over Paraguay, one must return to a time when World Cup teams were forced to drop out due to the Great Depression, and the ones who did make it arrived via ship, playing with a leather ball held together by seam and laces.The dominant 4-1 win matched a 96-year-old landmark – the largest margin of victory for the USA in a men’s World Cup game (they won 3-0 twice in the inaugural 1930 tournament, against Belgium and, in a neat bit of symmetry, Paraguay).Friday’s four-goal romp also marked the most goals scored by the USA at a men’s World Cup. It featured a 3-0 first-half blitz that matches the previous most unexpected 45 minutes of World Cup soccer played in the modern history of the program: the 3-0 lead built in 2002 against Portugal, a result the ESPN commentator Jack Edwards famously guaranteed was “stopping traffic all over Europe”.The result will live on in the record books for these reasons. But it will hold a special place in the hearts and minds of US fans because of the ethereal, less-fungible stuff.“I think we are winning a lot of fans, and adding fans for this sport,” Mauricio Pochettino said of his side’s performance. “I think it was a great match; was amazing for our fans to see this type of game.”No longer were the USA the same workmanlike outfit that had featured at previous World Cups, white-knuckling through on the strength of their grit and grind (though they showed some of that too, not letting a second-half Paraguay goal knock them off course).The iconic element of the USA’s opening victory was the very manner of it. Combinations flowed freely in midfield, defenders were split and dragged with alacrity. Neat finishes off moves well-worked enough to make the opening Paraguayan own goal an afterthought. Oohs and aahs stirred in the sold-out crowd of 70,492 at Los Angeles Stadium.“It’s pretty special to watch,” said Christian Pulisic, who was on a heater of his own before being pulled at half-time due to a knock picked up in the first half, and later brushed off as nothing serious. “It’s fun to look around and know that there’s different guys that can pull off these different skills and moves and things going on. It’s great. I feel like there’s such a good connection between us right now.”The USA midfielders tied Paraguay’s defensive unit in knots with rotations, in a manner that the Paraguay manager, Gustavo Alfaro, compared with “floating”. “This is a team that is complex, because they have answers to every element you throw at them,” Alfaro said. “We knew they were a very complex rival. We knew they have coordination, broadness, triangulations, and we were not ready … They dominated technically, tactically and physically as well.”One could call it, by some distance, the best World Cup performance ever by a USA men’s team. And it contained within it two of the best individual performances by US players at a World Cup.Pulisic became USA’s leader for World Cup assists and was dangerous throughout his 45 minutes. And in Folarin Balogun’s double, the US has its first multi-goal scorer in a single World Cup game since 1930 – that year again – when Bert Patenaude put three past, you guessed it, Paraguay.But in the same breath as he praised Pulisic and Balogun, Pochettino emphasized the collective nature of the performance, naming every starter on the pitch in quick succession, calling their performances “amazing”.“You want to push me to talk about names, and it’s about the team … the collective approach,” he said. “Of course, we have talented players that you can observe … but one thing we need to praise is the collective effort.”It was a collective approach that led to what Balogun called a “dreamy night” in Southern California. “I felt like it was a real statement.”“I’m not one to speculate,” Pulisic said. “I haven’t seen all of them.”

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The country is ready to blow away decades of dashed hopes and celebrate, with marching bands and all-night partiesScotland is leaning into one its most treasured traditions: embracing the hope and anxiety of a football World Cup, with a healthy dose of self-deprecating style.There are brash new tartans, an Edinburgh bar offering free Irn-Bru-infused “fiery ginger” beers for patrons with red hair, a collaboration between Scottish whisky firms and a Brazilian distiller, and all-night parties in nightclubs repurposed as fanzones.Supporters flying off to the US at Edinburgh and Glasgow airports were serenaded by pipers in the check-in halls; at Edinburgh it was the full military tattoo marching band, with a troupe of Highland dancers.Sprinkle all that in with a traditional row with the English – this time over disparaging remarks on Good Morning Britain by Ed Balls, Susanna Reid and the pundit Kevin Maguire about the extra bank holiday for Scotland sanctioned by the king – and the scene is perfectly set.It has taken Scotland 28 years to qualify for a World Cup, nearly three decades of grinding defeats and disillusionment, all while enduring its bitterest rival, England’s, repeated qualification for the tournament.The wait will end at 2am UK time on Sunday, when the team play underdogs Haiti in Boston. And despite the hour, perhaps a million or more Scots will be awake, watching at home, at friend’s houses, in bars and at fanzones dotted around the country.The first minister, John Swinney, will be at the game – a guest of the Scottish Football Association. He is mixing sport with opportunistic Brand Scotland trade, and cultural meetings at Harvard University and with local political leaders.The fanzone at one of Scotland’s cooler venues, SWG3 in the post-industrial west of Glasgow, has already sold out for that match and the following ties against two challengers for the trophy, Brazil and Morocco, with 1,300 people to gather for each of those two overnight games.“The venue’s certainly no stranger to a party atmosphere at 2am,” said its operations director, Bob Javaheri. “However, we’re usually looking to start winding down by that time, not ramping up.“I have a few friends that are heading Stateside for the tournament and, as disappointed as I am to not be joining them on the road, I’ve absolutely no doubt they’ll be keeping me well posted about their time away, so I’ll be living it all through them.“The last time Scotland were in the World Cup I watched the Scotland v Brazil game with my mum at home. I think I’ll have to get her in so we can relive that magic here on the big screen this time.”The anticipation has been amplified by the drama of Scotland’s final qualifying game against Denmark at Hampden Park, where two stunning goals that book-ended the game sent fans into raptures.It was a must-win match for Scotland. Within three minutes of kick-off, their talismanic midfielder Scott McTominay scored a remarkable overhead goal and then, after Denmark were reduced to 10 men yet levelled twice, Scotland’s 4-2 victory was capped off by an audacious goal from the halfway line.As Kenny McLean looked up from his own half in the dying seconds of extra time, teeing up his shot, the loud shouts of “shoot, shoot” from the stands were audible on television. The goal landed, and Hampden erupted.Those four goals enjoy iconic status in Scotland. McTominay’s overhead kick is immortalised by a vast gable-end mural near Hampden stadium; there were posters, hoodies, mugs and T-shirts printed with all four scorers in action.Yet for older fans, that game is a reminder of other times when the nation was aroused by naive dreams of success. The most famous was Archie Gemmill’s solo goal against the Netherlands in Argentina in 1978, where he dribbled balletically past three defenders. Scotland won that game 3-2 but failed to progress, while the Dutch reached the final.The team then was managed by Ally MacLeod, who told the world Scotland would win the tournament. The country called his team “Ally’s Tartan Army”; the team’s song, written by Andy Cameron and performed on Top of the Pops, is still sung by fans who lived through that time.Hamish Husband, a lifelong Scotland fan and spokesperson for the Association of Tartan Army Clubs, remembered the “mass over-confidence generated by the over-exuberant, quite naive, manager, Ally MacLeod. And the nation bought into it.”The country was more measured now, said Husband, who flew out to join Scotland’s fans in Boston on Thursday, but fatalism was now part of the collective memory: “There is still the sense there’s something going to go wrong.”Gerry Hassan, a political commentator and academic who has studied Scottish football, said he was singing Ally’s Tartan Army to himself during a walk last week, and was looking forward to watching the game at a friend’s house in Kirkcudbright, a small market town in Dumfries and Galloway.“That sense of what happened there, the whole sense of hope and then disappointment, disaster, near redemption – near redemption is possibly more poignant than actual redemption,” Hassan said.Given the extremely volatile world, the financial pressures and political upheaval the country is living through, this World Cup was a moment of collective celebration and community for fans.“It is a bit of a scarce commodity in modern life, that you are part of something bigger than yourself, that you’re connected to other people, that we’re not just atomised human beings. There’s a community here, there’s friendship, there are collective memories, and some of that we have agency in.”

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On the podcast today: the USA … might actually be very good? They blew Paraguay away in their opening game in LA. Christian Pulisic, we owe you a huge apology. Elsewhere; Canada come back to draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina, an inspired triple substitution from Jesse Marsch turning things around, and if not for some brilliant Bosnian blocks they should have won it. Plus, a preview of the next batch of games including Haiti v Scotland, the developing domestic bliss between Max and Barry, and your questions answered. Continue reading...

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Haiti are on football’s grandest stage for first time since 1974 and squad drawn from far and wide are ‘hungry’ for successTamy Michel grew up watching her father run a football club through prison, political upheaval and the endless uncertainties of life in Haiti.Solange Michel spent 18 years leading Baltimore SC, one of the country’s most storied clubs. In the 1990s, he was jailed amid the turmoil that engulfed Haitian politics but the club survived. Later, Tamy Michel’s aunt, Simone Devuleux, took over. The family have been stewards of Haitian football since 1974.Today, Michel represents players at the highest levels of the global game, from Ricardo Adé, the defensive leader of the Ecuadorian powerhouse LDU Quito, to Jean-Ricner Bellegarde and Wilson Isidor, coming off Premier League seasons, and Haiti’s record goalscorer, Duckens Nazon.For much of the world, Haiti’s return to football’s biggest stage after a 52-year absence, beginning at 2am on Sunday against Scotland at Boston Stadium, has been framed as an underdog story: a feelgood tale from a country more often associated with political turmoil, gang violence, natural disasters and humanitarian crises than elite sport. Michel sees something else entirely.“People usually say we’re not ready,” she says. “A lot of people never expected Haiti to make it. When the odds were against them, they never stopped. People forget that football is played on the field. They look at statistics and rankings and assume Haiti can’t compete. But at the end of the day, it’s 11 against 11.” The surprise, she suggests, says as much about outsiders’ assumptions as it does about Haiti itself.The team that have arrived at the 2026 World Cup, remarkably having booked their place despite playing every qualifier away from home, bear little resemblance to the one many casual observers might imagine. Only 10 of Haiti’s 26 players were born in the country. The squad includes Bellegarde, who plays for Wolves; Isidor, fresh from helping Sunderland to seventh in England’s top flight; Nazon, whose career has spanned France, England, Turkey and Iran; and Adé, who has established himself as one of South America’s most respected defenders.Yet Michel rejects the suggestion that Haiti have become some kind of diaspora side. “I see a national team,” she says. That distinction matters because, for all the different paths that brought them together, many of Haiti’s players faced a similar decision. They could have built successful careers without pulling on a Haiti shirt.Bellegarde’s story illustrates the point. Born and raised in France, he came through one of the world’s most productive football systems and won caps for France’s youth national teams before establishing himself in the Premier League. When Haiti approached him about representing the national team, Michel says he weighed the decision carefully, speaking with his parents and those around him. His heart, she says, was already with Haiti. “It’s home. It connects them to their parents and where their families come from.”The same sentiment echoes throughout the squad. Haiti may not have been where many of these players learned the game, but it remained the place they chose to represent.Haiti’s history contains a narrative entirely different from the prevailing international coverage. It became the world’s first independent nation founded by formerly enslaved people after a successful revolt, a legacy that shapes how many Haitians understand themselves and their place in the world.That tension resurfaced this year when Fifa required the national team to alter a World Cup jersey that featured imagery from the Haitian revolution. Months earlier, Olympic officials had raised similar objections to the inclusion of the revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture on Haiti’s Winter Games uniforms. The disputes served as a reminder that Haiti’s story is larger and more complicated than the stereotypes often attached to it.Adé understands that burden better than most. Unlike many of his teammates, the 36-year-old defender grew up in Haiti before building a career across the Americas. As one of the team’s leaders, he has watched expectations settle on the squad’s shoulders. Asked what responsibility comes with representing Haiti on the world stage, he does not talk about tactics or results. Instead he talks about the people watching back home. “Whenever we win a game, people are always happy,” Adé tells the Guardian. “They will be in the street and everything.”The World Cup offers a chance to present another image of Haiti. “People see too much bad news,” Adé says. “I’m not blaming them, but that’s what they see. Once you step foot in the country, you’re going to see other things.”Millions of viewers who know little about Haiti will encounter the country through this team in the coming weeks. For many of them, these matches may be their most sustained exposure to Haiti in years. “Now soccer is the face of Haiti,” Adé says. “It’s the good thing about Haiti. Now people are talking about Haiti because of soccer and because of the World Cup.”The responsibility extends beyond winning matches. “The thing we are doing is showing Haiti in a different way,” Adé says. “Showing that we can have less, but we can do much.”Haiti have not played a home match since 2021, yet support has followed the national team wherever they have gone. Michel recalled last week’s friendly against Peru in Miami that drew about 27,000 spectators. By her estimate, more than 20,000 were Haitian. With travel from Haiti prohibitively expensive for many and US visa restrictions limiting access for others, the diaspora has become the public face of Haitian support during the tournament. Scottish officials expect a similar dynamic in Foxborough, where the famed Tartan Army may find itself outnumbered by supporters whose connection to Haiti spans generations and continents.Next week Les Grenadiers face the five-time champions Brazil in Philadelphia on Juneteenth [19 June]. Fans are expected to descend on the city from New York, Boston, Montreal, south Florida and beyond, turning the match into something larger than sport: a gathering of a nation spread across the world.“There was a time when teams looked at Haiti as an easy opponent,” Michel says. “But you could see how hungry the players became. They always wanted to elevate Haiti and were proud to represent the country.“The biggest change is that it’s become more than football. It’s family. The structure has improved too: travel, organization, conditions for players. The sport has evolved a lot. And now we’re in the World Cup. That’s proof of how much has changed.”Some fans will remember Haiti’s only previous World Cup appearance in 1974, when Emmanuel Sanon ended Dino Zoff’s record streak of minutes without conceding a goal and briefly brought Italy, one of football’s giants, to their knees. Others may know the country’s place in World Cup history through Joe Gaetjens, the Haiti-born dishwasher whose goal delivered the USA’s famous upset of England in 1950. Many, however, have never seen Haiti play on the sport’s biggest stage. Some have never even set foot in the country they will spend the afternoon cheering for.Yet for a few hours, geography will matter less than identity. Families that left Haiti decades ago, children raised thousands of miles from the island and recent arrivals who still call it home will find themselves united beneath the same flag, singing the same anthem and investing the same hopes in the same team. For decades, Haiti has often been introduced to the world by others. This month, its footballers will do the introducing themselves.“I want them to know a little bit about our story,” Adé says. “We’ve been fighters for a long time.”

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Every World Cup needs its hosts to start well, more so this one, and Mauricio Pochettino’s team delivered on a fun day on the Pacific coastThe ball is magic, remember. Just keep watching the ball. On a lovely soft powder blue night in Los Angeles the World Cup produced an opening act on its US front that might have been conjured by the whirling hands of Gianni Infantino himself, a Fifa president who increasingly has the air and the mannerisms of an elite celebrity stage magician. Or at the very least, of a man who appreciates the power of the show.It turns out California really does know how to put on one of those. There was even a moment before kick-off that seemed to capture the cosmically strange nature of the entire Fifa multiverse. A little later the headline act Katy Perry would appear in a silver bustle and perform on a podium alongside a 10-year-old TikToker.Before that we got Korean pop sensation Lisa, who has 105 million Instagram followers, or 102.5 million more than the USMNT, backed by a troupe of men performing surprisingly sexualised hip thrusts and groin grabs that no doubt express, on some deeper level, the value of international team sport.Adjacent to this a man in a tracksuit appeared holding aloft a golden ball, like some ancient deity hoisting god’s gonad on his shoulders. At which point an enormous golden Fifa sign appeared, all four letters at least 50ft high, winched down out of the ether like a vision of divine grace – if not the most ludicrous sporting spectacle of all time, then surely the most ludicrous yet.What is the vast golden Fifa sign even supposed to signify? Behold: the acronym of an administrative organisation! What power is it expressing, what legitimacy? How should we worship it? How do we escape its wrath?The Fifa sign did eventually re-reascend, grudgingly. And by the end of the night a US team that came into this tournament with fingers crossed had run all over a disappointing Paraguay, scoring three times in the first half en route to a breezy 4-1 win.Every World Cup needs its hosts to start well. Even more so in the US, where there is always the lurking fear the president might decide to sulk or lose interest, like an angry toddler overturning his train set.Mainly Fifa needed it, at a World Cup that has been stretched thin and made strange, converted into a politicised public leisure-tainment product, in a nation that seems to be constantly at war with itself.A single fun, distracting day on the Pacific coast might still turn out to be the equivalent of turning up the music to mask the sound of the neighbours arguing through the wall. But we know how the spectacle works. And this was irresistible in a Los Angeles kind of way, on one of those nights when even the air seems to turn soft and blue.Before kick off the main rump of US fans had come sweeping down the boulevards in a rush of flares and pageantry, like the massed reserves in a civil war re-enactment. There is a slight misconception these fans see themselves as hard core ultras. In reality this is more like a costume party, an uncle Sam-ish show of Americana, stars and stripes dungarees, twirling flags, pom poms, straw hats, bow ties that spin around.The stadium here is stunning, all swooping lines, cooling fountains and funnelled breezes, a place that looks like it was designed by people in robes on some far flung Star Trek planet. It really should be staging the final, even if it will still cost you a scandalous $23.50 for a beer on the concourse.Fireworks flared. There were deafening roars of “Yoo Ess Ay”. Mauricio Pochettino appeared on his touchline in a blue grey suit and white trainers, hair rakishly long, looking like a 1980s cop whose work takes place exclusively on speedboats filled with diamonds.And the US started in a whirl of high pressing and forward movement, impressively fearless on a day that represents the biggest moment in any of these players’ international careers.The opening goal was made by Weston McKennie’s driving run and a cut back deflected into his own net by Damián Bobadilla. Paraguay had beaten Brazil and Argentina in qualifying. Here they spent the opening hour in a sullen defensive crouch, fulfilling Gustavo Álvarez’s brief to become “the team no one wants to face”, if only because this involves watching them play.Folarin Balogun got the second on the half hour mark. And there is a significant point here, even a note of grace through the fog. A certain version of America is being punted around the place right now. This vast democracy, a place of immigrants and liberty, has been rattling down its fences, pursuing its own citizens, parroting a divisively insular rhetoric.This US team does represent something else. It is a hugely mixed and diverse group of dual nationals, people with roots in places from Liberia to Croatia. Balogun, the decisive presence on the pitch, is of Nigerian descent, a place Trump has insulted, bombed and excluded. And here that diverse and spirited team did the thing sport does, modelling an ideal of harmony and fellowship, making a stadium and wider sporting nation happy. Moments like this don’t solve anything. But sport is always trying to tell you something, if you can be bothered to listen.Balogun got the third too, leaving two defenders splayed on the turf and spanking the ball into the top corner as the crowd cooed and gurgled and tumbled over itself. There was time to cheer the celebrity reel on the giant screen, David Beckham and Tom Cruise beaming like a nuclear grade twin celebrity megalith, Ishowspeed gurning and gesturing, excited to a preternatural level just to see himself reflected in a camera lens, startled every time to find he still exists.Trump was absent here, and replaced by Marco Rubio in the seat next to Infantino, who looked a little grudging and sad, like that scene in Goodfellas where Henry Hill is forced to endure a double date, then rushes off before the coffee comes.Perhaps Rubio can now stay on for the next game here, which features Iran, and a dramatic gear change into war, dissent and geopolitics.But this strange, bloated three-part tournament did at least take on some kind of shape in California, the place where the land ends and America fades into the blue. And suddenly the next four weeks do at least look and feel a little more like a World Cup.

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An Australian takeover is unfolding in British Columbia as fans pour in for the World Cup, joining the thousands of snow-obsessed expats who live thereThe Socceroos are not alone in Vancouver ahead of their World Cup opener against Turkey. In a city that is climactically and culturally a Melbourne with mountains, Australian accents were already hard to ignore, even before thousands more streamed through the airport gates in recent days.The city has made a strong first impression on Colby List, a Socceroos fan who is travelling North America with five friends for the tournament. “It reminds us a little bit of Australia,” he said. “We were in New York for a week before this, as part of the buildup, and Vancouver feels much more like home.”The Brisbane resident wore a Nestory Irankunda shirt to Vancouver’s World Cup fan festival, the views from which are dominated by the city’s North Shore Mountains. “It’s like a hilly Melbourne,” List said.Roughly 25,000 people in Canada claimed Australia as their birthplace in the 2021 census. Almost half live in British Columbia. Many of them are only here because of the mountains that crisscross Canada’s westernmost province.The ski town of Whistler 120 km away is colloquially known as “Whistralia”. Snow-obsessed Australians make up a significant part of the region’s alpine culture thanks to an uncapped visa scheme that allows working holiday stays for two years, longer than most countries. Many never leave.There are Australian-owned hospitality businesses, like the bakery Peaked Pies and the downtown pub Moose’s Down Under, which has a kangaroo burger on the menu. Nearby wildlife retreat Great Bear Lodge is managed by an Australian, Marg Leehane, a software developer from Melbourne who pursued a life in the wilderness.Some are happier in the city. Melbourne-born Alojz Cuk has been in Vancouver for 12 years, having met his Canadian wife as a young snowboarder. Their second child is due around the time of the World Cup final.“Almost every Canadian, when I mention that I’m Australian, they say they have some kind of connection to Australia, whether it’s the cousin that is married to an Australian or they’ve spent some time there,” he said. “Like my chiropractor I saw today, he did his uni just outside of Ballarat.”About 10,000 Australians are expected to attend the opening match according to Football Australia, based on country of origin data supplied when tickets were bought.Many of those will be like List, temporary visitors and keen football fans. Another Australian in an Irankunda jersey was spotted talking to a friend wearing the brown and white of St Pauli.Others are likely to be expats. Cuk said he has supported Croatia at previous World Cups through his Balkan heritage, but he wore a Wallabies jersey on Friday.One Australian family at the fan festival had the father in a yellow cricket shirt, wearing an Australian Open hat. His two boys wore blue caps adorned with the logo of the Calgary Kangaroos, an Australian rules club based in neighbouring province Alberta.These were just some of the hundreds of yellow shirts glimmering in Friday’s bright sun, crammed in among the Canadians watching the home side’s opening match against Bosnia and Herzegovina – an entertaining contest marked by the hosts’ late and deserved equaliser.List said he has noticed the numbers of Australians swell just over the past 24 hours. “We saw quite a few yesterday as we were out and about for the first two matches, but today there’s a lot more,” he said. The Australian takeover is only beginning.The Cat Empire, jazz-funk stalwarts from Melbourne, are playing two gigs and TikTok influencers Those Carter Boys have been flown in by the local tourism agency to pitch Vancouver to Australians on social media. A march by the Green and Gold Army is scheduled for match day down Robson Street, one of the city’s shopping and dining hubs.List, who attended World Cups in Brazil and Russia but missed Qatar, said he and his friends have quickly adopted the customary greeting – and camaraderie – among travelling Australians.“There’s always a nod of recognition and a wave,” he said. “We watched the Korea game [South Korea v Czechia] at a Korean restaurant.“It was good except that the TVs weren’t working, so all the customers came together. Some bloke had his laptop there, and we were Chrome-casting on to the TVs from the laptop, and one of our group was up trying to fix one of the TVs. We got it going in the end.”