“The World Cup has its first big surprise result after Spain were held by debutants Cape Verde in their Group H opener. Luis de la Fuente’s side might be many people’s pre-tournament picks for the trophy, but they struggled in front of goal against inspired opponents — who are 61 places below them in FIFA’s rankings. Dermot Corrigan, Felipe Cardenas, Anantaajith Raghuraman and Emily Giambalvo break down the game’s talking points. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
Spain held to shock draw by Cape Verde in their World Cup opener
“Lamine Yamal was left on the bench as the Barcelona superstar is eased back to fitness after nearly two months out with a hamstring injury, and even his appearance as a second-half substitute failed to break down Cape Verde’s dogged defence. Since winning the World Cup for the first time in 2010, Spain have not won a knockout game, and their inability to make dominance of possession count was reminiscent of their meek exits in 2018 and 2022. …”
Aljazeera
Guardian: Cape Verde shock Spain with historic draw on World Cup debut
YouTube: Spain vs Cape Verde Highlights 🌎🏆 2026 FIFA World Cup, Cape Verde’s 40-YEAR-OLD Goalkeeper Vozinha SHUTS OUT Spain with 7 Saves 🤯 2026 FIFA World Cup
“Egypt are still waiting for a World Cup win 92 years after their first appearance as Romelu Lukaku took just 23 seconds to go from the bench to causing chaos in the box, forcing an equaliser for Belgium. Emam Ashour’s 19th-minute opener was a fine low strike from outside the box and was followed by strutting celebration after which he was knocked to the turf by a team-mate. 
Zion Suzuki dives in vain as Van Dijk’s header finds the net
“The five-time World Cup champions Brazil were outplayed by Morocco for large parts of their 1-1 draw in front of a sell-out crowd at MetLife Stadium. Morocco scored an excellent goal to take the lead when Ismael Saibari chipped the ball over the Brazil goalkeeper Alisson, after racing on to a brilliant pass from Brahim Diaz. Brazil were struggling but a moment of magic from Vinicius made it 1-1 with a superb individual goal, cutting in from the left and lashing a shot beyond Yassine Bounou. Brazil had made four of their allocated five substitutes before 65 minutes, in a clear sign of Ancelotti’s thoughts on the performance. …”
“Qatar scored four minutes into second-half stoppage time to earn a 1-1 draw with Switzerland, their first ever point at a World Cup. Boualem Khoukhi headed in for the side ranked 50th in the world, denying the 19th-ranked Swiss victory as the Gulf team achieved the first notable surprise result of this tournament. Perhaps it was justice of sorts for Qatar, given there was plenty of confusion surrounding the game’s opening goal. Charlotte Harpur and Dermot Corrigan analyse the main talking points. …”
“It began with thunderous chants of ‘U-S-A’ and climaxed with the best 45 minutes in U.S. men’s World Cup history. It was seven years and 364 days in the making, and it was worth every day, hour, second of waiting. U.S. soccer fans and players had, for years, dreamed of this moment, a glitzy World Cup opener on home soil, an unparalleled stage for their sport. They had dreamed of meeting it, of igniting America, of elevating soccer. But no one could have realistically envisioned this — 
The Bosnia-Herzegovina side warm up at the Estádio do Maracanã, 
“Union shop stewards inside SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles are handing out buttons which read ‘Kick ICE Out’ for workers to wear at the venue hosting FIFA’s World Cup match between the United States and Paraguay on Friday night. The Unite Here Local Eleven union represent over 2,000 workers at the venue who largely work in food and beverage concessions, including cooks, dishwashers, servers and bartenders. The Athletic received images of both cooks and bartenders wearing the buttons. The union said the language of their agreement with the stadium operators, Legends Global, permits employees to wear ‘one (1) official Union button while on duty’. …”
“Canada fought back to earn a brilliant 1-1 draw against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the two sides’ opening World Cup group match in Toronto, courtesy of a late goal from substitute striker Cyle Larin. Jesse Marsch’s team went behind to Jovo Lukic’s effort in the 21st minute, the Bosnia and Herzegovina striker scoring his first goal for his country. Without their captain Alphonso Davies, who is nursing a hamstring injury, and with Jonathan David wasting a fine chance to score in the first half, Canada were up against it. …”
“Protesters and police clashed outside Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium just before the FIFA World Cup’s opening match kicked off. Protest groups have warned of further disruption to the tournament, as they use the global spotlight to press demands on issues ranging from education reforms to disappearances.” 
“If you are an avid football fan, or indeed watched South Korea vs the Czech Republic on the opening day of the World Cup, you might be wondering why the recorded attendance and the number of empty seats in the stadium did not necessarily correlate. For the second game of the tournament, the attendance at Guadalajara Stadium was officially set at 44,985, just under 700 seats short of the stadium’s listed capacity (45,664), according to FIFA. With that in mind, you would expect to need a keen eye to spot empties, and certainly not be taken aback by the sight of so many vacant seats. …”
“Mexico outclassed South Africa in the opening match of the 2026 World Cup in Mexico City, winning 2-0 as three players were sent off in a chaotic start to the tournament. To put it in perspective, at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, there were only four red cards across the whole tournament. Julián Quiñones opened the scoring in the ninth minute for the co-hosts with a shot through the legs of the South Africa goalkeeper Ronwen Williams, and Raúl Jiménez, who nearly six years ago fractured his skull while playing in the Premier League, increased Mexico’s lead in the 67th minute. …”
“A World Cup is a special event not just for the sport of 
Police stand outside the Estadio Azteca, renamed the Estadio Ciudad de México for the World Cup, ahead of Thursday’s tournament opener.
“Soccer is a game of constantly moving parts — keeping track of it can be disorienting. Thankfully, starting formations provide a useful initial reference point, helping us make sense of the unfolding chaos. In theory, there are thousands of possible configurations of defenders, midfielders and forwards. In reality, most are captured by six broad shapes: 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3, 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 3-4-2-1 and 4-5-1. Since 2019-20, these six have accounted for 88 per cent of all formations used in club matches played in Europe’s top five leagues, and they will be the dominant shapes at the 2026 World Cup. …”
“The 
“The soccer haters are at it again. You can 
Senegal fans enjoy the Afcon final in Rabat in January, even if their team were stripped of the title after the controversy in the win against Morocco.
“You already know about the superstars who could light up the 2026 Fifa World Cup, but what about the next wave of talent? A record 1,248 players can feature in the USA, Canada and 
“WHEN Argentina won the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, their list of opponents contributed to one of the weakest paths to glory in the competition’s history. This was the last 32-team tournament and the addition of more low level teams this year will only dilute the overall strength of the World Cup. Even though Argentina beat France and also came up against Croatia and the Netherlands, they also had Saudi Arabia, Australia, Poland and Mexico on their fixture list. The average ranking of their opponents was 25.3, the highest of any World Cup winner since Uruguay in 1930. …”
“Global sporting events like the FIFA World Cup are often pitched to host cities as economic jackpots. It’s a promise fuelled by an influx of tourists, packed hotels, new jobs and billions in spending. But as the games approach, skyrocketing ticket prices, weaker-than-expected hotel bookings and broader economic uncertainty are raising questions about whether the event will deliver the windfall many cities anticipated. … Fans are also facing confusion about visas. The administration waived its visa bond programme that requires visitors from 50 countries to pay a $15,000 bond deposit. In May, it dropped the requirement for those who have tickets to a World Cup game. However, amid reported delays in visa processing, travellers might not make it in time, or could still be barred from entering the country. Domestic travellers are also feeling squeezed. …”
“The 48 teams competing at this summer’s World Cup are making their final preparations for the tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico. They have qualified for what will be the biggest World Cup yet, expanded from the 32 teams that had competed since the 1998 edition in France, with a host of debutants and plenty of countries not regularly seen on the global stage. Our writers have spent months watching the sides involved and compiling this guide to every country that will take the field this summer. This article is detailed, but that also means it is long. You can search for a particular national team you would like to know more about, or jump to the group you are particularly interested in. …”
“This summer, the World Cup enters its biggest era yet. For the first time, 48 teams will compete for the trophy, with matches spread across Canada, Mexico and the United States. The expansion brings familiar giants and four first-time qualifiers into the field, creating the largest edition in its history, with more matches and storylines than ever before. Alongside former winners are returning sides with long World Cup histories, nations ending lengthy waits to get back on the stage and debutants appearing at the finals for the first time. Each continent provides its own stories, from South America’s traditional heavyweights to Africa’s growing ambitions and Europe’s deep field of contenders. Below is all you need to know about the 48 sides. …”
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“It is nearly here. It feels like the 2026 World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the United States of America has been in the planning stages for centuries, such is all the drama that has already taken place before a ball has been kicked. 
“When an estimated 400 million people tuned in to the 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany at Wembley, many of them watching a game live on television for the first time, it changed the way we remember football. Before the 1954 tournament, World Cups weren’t televised at all. If you wanted to know how teams played, you bought a newspaper the next day and read a column about it by some cigar-chomping sportswriter in a three-piece suit. Now fans could follow along for themselves in fuzzy black and white: And here comes Hurst, he’s got — some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over… It is now! …”
With Norway competing in its first World Cup in nearly 30 years, the 73rd annual Norwegian Day Parade in Bay Ridge was unusually lively.
“How it works. The progress of the World Cup from match to match is determined from the beginning: there are no further draws to decide who plays whom in subsequent rounds. To maximise the spectacle, the competition is structured, broadly, to ensure that the “bigger” teams don’t face each other (and knock each other out) too early in the competition, and to ensure that all 48 teams have an incentive to field their strongest side for every fixture. The top two teams from each group automatically qualify to the next round. Because the winner of a group will face a second- or third-placed team from another group, the hope is that France, for instance, will not rest on their laurels once they have enough points to qualify for the knockouts but will try to win their last game to get what in principle are easier opponents in the next round, the last 32. …”
While demonstrating against the 2014 World Cup, protesters clash with police outside of Maracanã Stadium following the removal of indigenous Brazilians camped in Rio de Janeiro’s Museu do Índio.
“Every World Cup needs them, those ‘dark horse”’nations who perform well in qualifying, enjoy some success in their respective continental tournaments and then threaten to upset the heavyweights. The term itself comes from 1830s horse-racing gambling — for an unknown horse for whom it was hard to assign betting odds. In the two centuries since, it’s been slightly corrupted as a footballing term. We have surprise packages, who emerge during the tournament, and that’s what dark horse should mean based on its etymology. …”
“King Charles III is pondering a tactical dilemma. His best player, Harry Kane, hasn’t turned up to the tournament because he didn’t deem it important enough to make the two-week voyage. … Sound familiar? Well, the names have been changed but all these things once happened in the biggest tournament that football has to offer. Welcome to the wild and wonderful story of the 1930 World Cup. There were only 13 teams in the first World Cup, or as the United States team manager called it at the time, the World’s Championship of Soccer Football….”
France’s players aboard the ship taking them to the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay.
“The night before England manager 
“The World Cup promises to be the most-watched event in the history of sport. As a consequence, it will also be one of the most lucrative events on which bookmakers have ever offered odds. With huge betting markets already established in East Asia and Europe, and 
“Incondicionales – Unconditional. Few countries have a knottier relationship with the World Cup than Mexico. The tournament will visit for an unprecedented third time this summer. Entire chapters of football history have been written on the turf of the Estadio Azteca, one of the sport’s holy sites. The Mexican national team, known to fans as El Tri, have missed only five World Cups. They have been ever-present since 1990, reliably contributing to the colour and fanfare of the greatest show on earth. That’s the good stuff. The consensus view, however, is that it is outweighed by the bad. …”
“The International Football Association Board (IFAB) has announced a raft of landmark rule changes that will come into force ahead of this summer’s World Cup, with the overarching objectives being to tackle discrimination, cut time-wasting, increase match tempo and improve fan and player experience. ‘We are trying to clean the game as much as possible,’ Pierluigi Collina, chairman of the FIFA referees committee, told reporters. Among the changes will be: A red card for covering the mouth in a confrontational situation; A red card for leaving the field of play in protest at a match official’s decision; VAR to overturn incorrectly awarded corners; Changes to on-field treatment rules. Collina is leading the implementation, while the World Cup’s 170 officials will take part in a final preparatory seminar in Miami on Tuesday. …”
“Arne Slot has been sacked as Liverpool head coach. The decision has been taken by owner Fenway Sports Group after Liverpool finished fifth in the Premier League with just 60 points, their lowest total for a decade. Andoni Iraola is now considered the 
SoFi Stadium workers protested against ICE last month, a key issue in their bargaining sessions with stadium operators.
“Thousands of tickets remain unsold for the United States’ high-priced World Cup opener, with data captured by The Athletic and other sources suggesting that the game is not on pace to sell out at current prices and purchasing rates. As of Thursday evening, two weeks before the 2026 World Cup begins, there were more than 3,500 tickets available on FIFA’s primary portal for the June 12 match between the U.S. and Paraguay. There were also over 6,500 tickets listed on FIFA’s resale platform, meaning there are over 10,000 tickets available for the match, which was initially billed as one of the tournament’s most attractive games. …”
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Garrincha in full flight against Wales at the 1958 World Cup
Mexico City’s Estadio Olimpico Universitario, which hosted World Cup matches in 1970 and 1986, feels less like an object placed on a site and more like a landmark that belongs to it.
“It would be easy to look at Saturday’s Champions League final between 
“This has not been a happy year for Italian football. The men’s national team failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup, while 
“… The 10 players we will feature are the highest-ranked World Cup winners of our 100. Today, it is an Italian great who ranked 19th in our century and has a champions’ medal from the 1982 tournament despite never actually making it onto the pitch during it. Franco Baresi stood in the Amazon Theatre in Manaus. The salmon-pink opera house with a dome the colour of Brazil’s flag was built in 1896, when that city in the middle of the jungle became one of the richest on the planet during the rubber boom. …”
“A non-profit organization which supports people with serious spinal injuries was forced to cancel a raffle for two World Cup tickets after receiving cease-and-desist letters from a law firm representing soccer’s global governing body FIFA. In early May, Vancouver-based Spinal Cord Injury BC organized a promotion which invited people to enter a draw to secure two tickets to New Zealand against Egypt at BC Place on June 21, with proceeds intended to benefit various programs. The non-profit says on its website its key work is to ‘help people with spinal cord injuries and related disabilities to adjust, adapt and thrive’. …”
Liverpool v Crystal Palace – Anfield, Liverpool, Britain – April 25, 2026
“The 2025-26 Premier League season is done and dusted — so what better time than right now to predict who will win it next time? Arsenal were crowned champions, overcoming Manchester City and improving on three consecutive seasons finishing as runners-up, and Mikel Arteta’s team look like they’ll enter 2026-27 with momentum and stability in their favour. City are coming to terms with the new era following the departure of the iconic Pep Guardiola, and they hope to replace him with Enzo Maresca, while Manchester United will continue under the stewardship of Michael Carrick, who succeeded Ruben Amorim at Old Trafford and oversaw their turnaround in the second half of the season. …”
Scissors Kick 