Daily Archives: June 5, 2026

World Cup dark horses: Ecuador, Mexico, Japan, Norway and Senegal

“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)

Diverse. Complicated. United. This is what it is to be a USMNT soccer fan

“Diverse. Complicated. United. That, in three words, is U.S. soccer fandom. It’s the faithful few who travel coast to coast. It’s the millions attached to this infectious but fragmented sport, their interest divided among dozens of different leagues and teams. It’s also the soccer agnostics, the rabid sports fans who obsess over basketball or American football but ignore the world’s football for years at a time. Every fourth year, all those groups rally around the U.S. men’s national team, united by a belief that their overlooked squad — and this overlooked sport — can rise and shock the world. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH: Australia’s fans are green, gold, still here. Even if the path to acceptance has been a difficult one (Video)
NYT/ATH: Turkey fans finally feel like they have a team which represents them. They are ‘Our Guys’ (Video)
NYT/ATH: The Claw of the Guarani says it all for Paraguay, a nation fiercely protective of its identity (Video)