“When you’ve just drawn 0-0 against a country ranked 64th in the world and which has a population of around 500,000, you can no longer be considered favourites to win the World Cup. Spain will surely improve but they deservedly drop down Tuesday’s rankings. But where do Cape Verde land after shocking the world? And what about Belgium and Egypt after their opening draw? …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“The World Cup saw one of its biggest-ever surprises when Cape Verde, playing its first game at the tournament, held Spain — European champions and many people’s favorites to win this summer — to a 0-0 draw. The first round of games in Group G ended with all four teams on one point, as another shock was avoided by a late goal from Maxi Araujo, as Uruguay came from behind to salvage a draw against Saudi Arabia. Romelu Lukaku made an immediate impact by forcing an equaliser for Belgium, after it had spent much of the game in Seattle trailing to Egypt, while the other game in that group saw Iran come from behind twice to earn a draw with New Zealand. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“Soccer unites. This is what we are told. It swoops in, majestic in the players’ grace, and gives a people – any people – a thing to rally around in good times and bad. It’s true, that does happen on occasion. But other times, as in Monday’s 2-2 draw between Iran and New Zealand here in southern California, the magic of this ridiculously simple game lies in its power to make one, or several, or several thousand, forget. Before the game, Iranians worldwide had been divided by decades of political and cultural difficulty and the Iran team were hamstrung by interrupted preparations for what should be the pinnacle of any player’s career. …”
Guardian (Video)
YouTube: Iran vs New Zealand Extended Highlights 🌎🏆 2026 FIFA World Cup
“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. There were more Egypt players on the floor soon after Lukaku appeared as a 66th-minute substitute as he burst onto Thomas Meunier’s low cross and defender Mohamed Hany poked the ball into his own goal for 1-1. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
YouTube: Belgium vs Egypt Highlights 🌎🏆2026 FIFA World Cup
Zion Suzuki dives in vain as Van Dijk’s header finds the net
“Japan struck late from a corner to earn a brilliant 2-2 draw against Netherlands in the best game of the World Cup so far. Ronald Koeman’s side went ahead when Virgil van Dijk glanced a header into the far corner early in the second half but Japan were level six minutes later through Keito Nakamura’s strike from the edge of the box. Netherlands restored their lead when Crysencio Summerville whipped an excellent shot into the far corner and looked to be heading for victory until Daichi Kamada scored for Japan. A header from Koki Ogawa glanced off Kamada and bounced past the Dutch goalkeeper Bert Verbruggen with two minutes of normal time remaining. …”
NYT/ATH
YouTube: Netherlands vs Japan 2-2 All Goals & Extended Highlights | FIFA World Cup 2026
“Germany overpowered tournament debutants Curacao to begin their World Cup campaign with a dominant 7-1 victory — but only after the tiny Caribbean island enjoyed a famous moment and briefly threatened an upset. When Livano Comenencia cancelled out Felix Nmecha’s excellent opener midway through the first half, there were wild scenes of celebration among those fans of The Blue Wave who had managed to get tickets for the game at NRG Stadium in Houston. Ranked 82nd in the world and with a population of just over 150,000, any kind of positive result against the four-time winners would have been one of the greatest upsets in World Cup history. ….”
NYT/ATH
World Cup nations slam UEFA chief for ‘disappointing’ 48-team criticism
“UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has been criticised by football governing bodies in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean for reportedly saying that the expanded 48-team FIFA World Cup has led to many ‘uninteresting’ matches.The football associations of Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Curacao, Haiti, Jordan, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia said in a statement on Sunday that they ‘respectfully but firmly reject’. … Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan qualified for their first World Cup this year, while DR Congo and Haiti reached football’s top event for the first time since 1974. … The 2026 tournament is the largest ever, featuring 48 nations, up from 32 in previous iterations. ‘For our countries, there is no such thing as an unimportant World Cup match,’ the statement said. ‘Football does not belong to a select group of nations. Its strength comes from its universality. For many countries, participation in the FIFA World Cup is not only a sporting achievement. It is a moment that inspires a generation, accelerates football development and creates memories that last a lifetime.’ …”
Aljazeera
“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
YouTube: Brazil vs Morocco 1-1 Extended Highlights & All Goals | FIFA World Cup 2026
“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. …”
NYT/ATH
“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 — a rousing 4-1 win over Paraguay, patriotic glee on the field and in the stands, silky soccer and eruptions of noise. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
Moroccan players pray after scoring during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group F match between Belgium and Morocco at Al Thumama Stadium, Doha, Qatar on 27 November 2022.
“For centuries, theologians have struggled to precisely understand the role of sports, including football, in God’s greater purposes. In a Christian perspective, the ancient Olympic Games were a celebration of pagan Gods. With athletes competing in the nude, serious-minded Christian Puritans saw no other option than to place sports completely outside of God’s realm. In fact, it was not until the Industrial Revolution and the popularization of modern sports, including football, that Christians tapped into sports as a ‘potential classroom for morality and a platform for evangelism.’ In recent years, scholars of religion have gradually turned their attention to sport, assessing contemporary sport for its quasi-religious aspects and as one of the most popular and significant dimensions of human experience in the 21st century. …”
Africa Is a Country
The Bosnia-Herzegovina side warm up at the Estádio do Maracanã, Rio de Janeiro ahead of their clash with Argentina during 2014 FIFA World Cup.
“The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup is going to be the most cosmopolitan tournament in football history. Across the 48 qualified nations, more teams than ever are drawing on players raised beyond their borders, turning the competition into a showcase not only of footballing talent but also of new identities. These increasingly global squads have emerged for different reasons. In some cases, they are the legacy of colonial ties that continue to bind former empires to their diasporas. In others, they are the product of generations of economic migration, with children and grandchildren of expatriates choosing to represent the countries their families left behind. And sometimes, they serve an even deeper purpose: helping to reconnect a nation with people who were scattered across the world by war. …”
Africa Is a Country
“Bafana Bafana winning the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) wasn’t just a new trophy to add to the cabinet; it was a grand reintroduction of South Africa onto the global footballing stage in its democratic glory. The team was imbued with political meaning and became another representation of the Rainbow Nation project. But like the fantasy of a unified nation, that image of Bafana would come to mirror the realities of South African politics. For almost 30 years, the team would demonstrate the corrosive nature of government corruption. …”
Africa Is a Country
“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
YouTube: Canada vs Bosnia and Herzegovina Highlights | 2026 FIFA World Cup
“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
Guardian: Raúl Jiménez seals Mexico’s win against nine-man South Africa in World Cup opener
YouTube: Mexico vs South Africa Highlights 🌎🏆 2026 FIFA World Cup
“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. …”
NYT/ATH
“The 2026 World Cup is here, and it’s bigger than ever before. To help you follow the tournament, The Athletic has identified 200 players that we’re calling the Stars of Soccer. Some are household names — yes, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are here — but plenty are not. Our guide has players from all 48 nations, including six Americans and seven members of England’s team. This list is not a collection of rankings. Instead, we’ve put these players into one of five categories: Legends, Superstars, Key players, Rising stars and Unsung heroes. You can sort or filter them however you’d like, including by country or professional club. Each link leads to a comprehensive profile, detailed charts breaking down a player’s most important characteristics and a name pronunciation guide. Whether you just want to brush up on your favorite team or learn about an upcoming opponent, we have you covered. …”
NYT/ATH
“The heat and the altitude worried everybody. The 1970 World Cup in Mexico would not be a normal one. So the Bulgarian authorities sent their squad south of Sofia to get used to playing several thousand feet above sea level. Which seemed a great idea until somebody noticed that the temperature in the Pirin mountains was not in the mid-20s as it is in Mexico but somewhere near freezing. How then could they replicate the effect of playing in intense heat? By restricting water intake so that the players got used to performing while dehydrated. The plan was not a great success. …” – Jonathan Wilson
Guardian
“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. …”
NYT/ATH
“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. …”
BBC
“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. But it is upon us. It would be too much to say the controversies about ticket prices, visas, extortionate train fares and literal wars will fade away once it gets started on June 11, but we will at least have some football to watch alongside them. The 48 teams that have qualified for the tournament all go into it with different priorities and different levels of expectation. Here, we have ranked all 48 from best to worst, as things stand — or rather, we’ve re-ranked them, making adjustments from the last time we undertook this endeavour in April, when all the qualifiers were confirmed, to take into account managerial changes, key injuries and any other factors that might have impacted those teams. Read on, and tell us where you think we’ve gone wrong. …”
NYT/ATH
2026 World Cup Power Rankings: Every Team Ranked From 48 to 1
“Ready for this summer’s soccer smorgasbord that will be the 2026 FIFA World Cup? You better be because you know I am. I’m ready for 48 teams from around the globe to take part in what will be an epic party spread across three nations, including the United States. But let’s be real. There are teams that are better than others. Some will have a legit shot at winning it all. And some will just enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So now it’s time to rank all 48 teams. And remember, these are my power rankings. If you don’t like them, you can get your own. …”
FOX Sports (Video)
“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! …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
The Total Football era’s transformation of the sport can be seen in the data
“In a new series from The Athletic, ‘The Language of Soccer’, we spoke to supporters of all 48 participating nations in the men’s 2026 FIFA World Cup. Our aim is to capture each country’s unique fan and football culture, told through their voices. We asked these fans to come up with a single phrase that best encapsulates the experience of being a supporter of their national team. We then put the suggested phrases to a vote, using supporters’ groups and networks to gauge the opinions of as many fans as possible. The winning phrase is the one you will see below and around which each country’s story is framed. This exploration of these nations’ rich and diverse football culture and traditions touches music, food, history, language, psychology and much more. We will be publishing all 48 articles before the World Cup begins, starting with one group per day and we will update this page as they come out. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“2026 World Cup is less than a week away, and it’s gigantic. Three countries, 12 groups, 48 teams, 1,248 players. But enlargement brings complexity. There is so much to learn ahead of the big kick-off next Thursday and a rapidly decreasing window in which to do so. Welcome, then, to The Athletic’s 2026 World Cup Tactical Group Guides, which will walk you through the key battles on the pitch, tell you about the players to look out for, and offer up some fun facts to impress your friends with ahead of the tournament.
GROUP G: De Bruyne, Salah, Taremi and Wood face off in battle of the veterans
GROUP H: Spanish control, Uruguay’s relentlessness, and two dark horses?
GROUP I: How will France, Senegal, Norway and Iraq contest the group of death?
GROUP J: Austria’s intensity, Algeria’s transitions, and is Messi still Argentina’s key man?
GROUP K: Pacy Colombia, fluid DR Congo and can Ronaldo lead Portugal to glory?
GROUP L: Croatia’s veterans, Ghana’s gamble, and can Tuchel make England unpredictable?
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.
“In 2014, on the eve of hosting the World Cup, Brazil was on fire. For several years, under the stewardship of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the country had been the poster child of an early-century wave of new left leadership in South America. His administration was well-liked by the general population, with President Obama of the United States famously remarking that Lula was the most popular politician in the world. In the midst of a commodities-export boom and a social restructuring that saw the diversification of universities, extension of land rights to marginalized groups, and an expansion of the social welfare system, in 2007, the country was awarded the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup. It was the peak of the PT’s domestic and international goodwill. …”
Africa Is a Country
“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. 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)
“Dima Maghreb – Always Morocco. Oussama Marhoum is the capo of Morocco fan group RossoVerde — but he does not watch the national team’s matches. He stands behind the goal, back to the pitch, dictating the rhythm of the chants and drums. … Morocco head to the World Cup this summer eighth in the FIFA world rankings, having been named, in remarkable circumstances, winners of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON). They were beaten 1-0 in the final by Senegal in January, having missed a stoppage-time penalty. But 57 days later the Confederation of African Football announced that they had been handed the title, due to the Senegalese players leaving the pitch in protest at the awarding of that late spot kick. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH: Brazil are five-time World Cup winners. A new generation of fans are ‘chasing the sixth’ (Video)
NYT/ATH: For years, Canadian soccer fandom was confined to message boards – not anymore (Video)
NYT/ATH: For years, Every Qatar conversation comes back to 2022. But their fans want to cheer the Maroons to a new piece of history (Video)
“… Life was supposed to be good, maybe even different, as a fan of Canada’s men’s team. But as day turned to night, Gauthier realized he had committed the cardinal sin of Canadian soccer fandom at the time. He had allowed himself to imagine. Two Cuban goals ended Canada’s Gold Cup hopes. They left the competition without an appearance in the knockout phase and would begin nearly a generation spent in the soccer wilderness. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH: Above Bosnia matches, the sky will burn. Their fans’ fire is love, not anger (Video)
NYT/ATH: Every Qatar conversation comes back to 2022. But their fans want to cheer the Maroons to a new piece of history (Video)
NYT/ATH: Switzerland is a country of four languages. Its ‘Nati’ will unite the people at the World Cup (Video)
“The night before England manager Thomas Tuchel named his 26-man World Cup squad was a nervous one. Not so much for the players: by then, most of them had already received the phone call telling them whether they were in or out. But for those responsible for producing the squad announcement video that the English Football Association (FA) wanted to go live at 10am the next morning. … The duo, who run creative agency Dirty Vanilla, had spent the previous three weeks working night and day on the project, from shooting the main running sequence on one of New York’s busiest streets, to tasking staff with creating hand-drawn animations and designers with computer-generated imagery (‘zero AI was used,’ Shaw points out). But there was only so much they could do without Tuchel’s final list of names, which landed with them around 7pm the night before the film was due to go live. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH: Czech Republic fans have spent years envying those who went to Mexico. Now it is their turn (Video)
NYT/ATH: The hope of 2010 is returning for South Africa. Their fans are all Bafana Bafana again at last (Video)
NYT/ATH: Victory Korea reflects a growing belief in the country’s global status – on and off the pitch (Video)
“Paris Saint-Germain have joined the elite. The champions of France saw off their English counterparts courtesy of a 4-3 penalty shootout victory following a 1-1 draw to become only the second club to win back-to-back Champions League titles. Arsenal took the lead just six minutes into the game. A fast break ended with Kai Havertz firing high and hard into the roof of the net. There was a debatable handball in the build-up after the ball appeared to make contact with Leandro Trossard’s upper arm, but it was not given. Bukayo Saka also survived a shout for a penalty after appearing to handle in the box. …”
NYT/ATH
NYT/ATH – Champions League final tactics: PSG’s rotations, that watertight Arsenal defence, and two types of set-piece threat
Guardian: Paris Saint-Germain retain Champions League as Arsenal dream dashed in shootout
BBC: Paris Saint-Germain 1 – 1 Arsenal (Video)
YouTube: PSG vs. Arsenal: Extended Highlights | UCL Final
Gabriel’s penalty flies over the bar
“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 clear favourite for the role, having finished his final season at Bournemouth with a club-first qualification to the Europa League. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“If this was a normal World Cup year, Christophe Gleizes would be busy. As a reporter specializing in African football, he would be reading, traveling, talking to people, checking in with sources and looking for offbeat stories around the tournament that he could bring to life in the pages of the Paris-based magazine So Foot. But for Gleizes, this World Cup year has been like no other. With the tournament looming, the 37-year-old Frenchman is languishing in an Algerian prison after being handed a seven-year jail sentence in June 2025 for ‘glorifying terrorism’ and ‘possessing propaganda publications harmful to the national interest’. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
Lens arranged a friendly against Rouen and donated funds from the game to the campaign for Gleizes’ freedom
“It would be easy to look at Saturday’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal and see it as a battle of attack versus defence, of beauty against pragmatism, of French elan against English doughtiness, as some sort of tussle for the soul of football. But it would not entirely be true. And where, after all, was the honour at Agincourt? In the vainglorious charges of the dashing French cavalry or the stoic defiance of the British archers arrayed, naked from the waist down, behind their defensive stakes? …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson
“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 Serie A clubs endured one humiliation after another in Uefa competition. Inter went from Champions League finalists to elimination in the playoff round by Bodø/Glimt, while Juventus conceded seven goals to Galatasaray. They both did better than last year’s Scudetto winners, Napoli, who failed to even get through the group stage. At least Atalanta rescued Italy from having no representatives in the last 16 for the first time in almost 40 years when they overturned a two-goal deficit against Borussia Dortmund. And then they got walloped 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich. …”
Guardian
Liverpool v Crystal Palace – Anfield, Liverpool, Britain – April 25, 2026
“The Premier League is all over for another season. The title, European places and relegation spots have been decided. Managers have come and gone, expensive signings have shone and disappointed, and now it’s on to transfers and the World Cup. But first… The Athletic’s Premier League season grades. How did your club perform? Is their grading harsh or fair? Let us know in the comments below. …”
NYT/ATH
“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. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“If last season was a euphoric high for Liverpool, this one has been a crushing low. Few could have predicted the 2024-25 Premier League champions title defence being so limp. Head coach Arne Slot has achieved the bare minimum objective of qualifying for the Champions League but it comes with relief rather than belief and there is huge uncertainty around him and his underperforming squad heading into the summer. Liverpool actually won their first seven games of the season in all competitions but things quickly went downhill and everybody is ready to forget a horrible campaign. Should we make this the last time we speak about it? …”
NYT/ATH
Crystal Palace: love a long throw
“The silverware is being dished out, with Arsenal lifting the Premier League trophy for the first time in 22 years after pipping Manchester City to the title in the penultimate gameweek of the season. It is the first time that Pep Guardiola has gone two consecutive seasons without a league championship in a senior managerial career that began in 2008. Individually, Brentford’s Igor Thiago pushed Erling Haaland of City all the way, but the Norway international regained the Golden Boot award in 2025-26 as the Premier League’s top goalscorer with 27 goals — clinching the honour for the third time in his four years in England. …”
NYT/ATH
“The 2025-26 Premier League season was a strange one — the bottom-half clubs were good, the top-half clubs were inconsistent, and there was a major focus on intensity and set pieces at the expense of interplay and creativity. Three hundred and eighty games is a lot to digest. But what if the whole Premier League season could be boiled down into 10 matches, with each side featuring once? Well, it would look something like this. …”
NYT/ATH – Michael Cox
“The Green Brigade of Glasgow Celtic Football Club were founded in 2006 as an explicitly anti-sectarian, anti-racist and anti-fascist group of ultras, who would celebrate Irish Republicanism, oppose the commercialisation of football, and act as an alternative to apolitical fans groups who were perceived as being too close to the management of the club. Football has long provided a space for dissident politics to be expressed, and the link between football and radical politics is well established (Kuhn, 2011). In Scotland, football is an important forum where issues of ethnic, religious and political identity are played out, with Celtic being an important conduit for expressions of Irish immigrant identities, particularly support for Irish Republicanism, anti-imperialist struggles, and broadly left-wing politics. As ultras, the Green Brigade support their team in a passionate, colourful, loud and coordinated way, making use of banners, pyrotechnics, songs and chants, and other expressions of die-hard support. The term ‘ultra’, for many, has become synonymous with right-wing football groups, particularly in Italy, where fascist ultras groups are extremely prevalent. While it is true that right-wing, fascist ultra groups are extremely prominent throughout Europe, ultra is a subcultural scene which has been adopted by both right and left-wing football fans and activists. …”
libcom.org (2023)
W – Green Brigade
BBC: Who are the Celtic fan group the Green Brigade?
The Green Brigade: Football Hooligans or Gateway Politicos?
YouTube: Green Brigade Go Wild Upon Return To Paradise – Celtic 1 – St Mirren 0 – 11/04/26
Celtic’s Ultras division, The Green Brigade,
“Mohamed Salah’s extraordinary Liverpool career is drawing to an end. Since arriving at the club in the summer of 2017, the Egyptian has amassed 257 goals in 441 games — a record only bettered by two players in the club’s history. His time at Liverpool has not been without controversy — as events in the last week have underlined — but his legend is secure. His legacy, however, spreads far beyond Merseyside. This week, The Athletic is publishing a special three-part series examining Salah’s time at Anfield, including his playing legacy and his wider impact as a social and cultural icon. Today, we examine how his move from Roma transformed football’s transfer market, proving what could be done with data and why the smartest signings are not always the most obvious. …”
NYT/ATH
“It all started behind a pine tree. The setting was Middlesbrough’s Rockliffe Park training ground, two days before the club were due to meet Southampton in the Championship play-off semi-finals. Will Salt, a first-team performance analyst intern working for Southampton, had travelled north to gather intelligence on the club’s opponents as they trained a few metres away beyond a metal fence. He stationed himself behind the tree and got out his mobile phone to record Middlesbrough’s players, hoping he would go unnoticed. …”
NYT/ATH
“World Cups are frequently remembered for magnificent goals, heroic performances and famous wins, but shock results play a huge role in our collective memory of the tournaments too. Here, then, is our attempt to quantify the five biggest upsets of all-time. USA 1-0 England, 1950 It’s difficult to fully explain the vast difference in expectations for England and the United States going into World Cup 1950. For England, this was their first World Cup appearance having boycotted the first three editions, but they remained convinced that English football was the strongest in the world. Their team included legendary players like Billy Wright, Tom Finney and Stan Mortensen, all amongst the greatest in their position in the world, as well as defender Alf Ramsey, who would manage England to World Cup success 16 years later. Soccer in the United States was yet to take off, and they sent a hastily assembled side managed by William Jeffrey, a Scot whose day job was coaching the Penn State University side. The players were amateurs — some regular first-teamers couldn’t travel because of the demands of their day jobs. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“This was supposed to be a week of celebration for Mohamed Salah and Liverpool. The announcement in March that this would be the Egyptian’s final season on Merseyside teed up this Sunday’s game against Brentford at Anfield to be a golden goodbye to one of the club’s — and the Premier League’s — greatest ever players. Instead, another public outburst from Salah last weekend — this time, the most thinly veiled of attacks on Slot’s style of play — has created an awkward question for the head coach and club executives: how do they handle the forward’s farewell now? …”
NYT/ATH
“This is not how it was supposed to be. This is not how the most gripping Scottish title race in two generations was meant to end, with Celtic fans on the pitch confronting Hearts’ beaten and dejected players and with sufficient chaos around the two dugouts for referee Don Robertson to effectively stop the match without blowing a final whistle. Hearts manager Derek McInnes had predicted ‘bedlam’, but not like this. McInnes’s captain, Lawrence Shankland, was one of the visiting players seen being goaded by triumphalist Celtic supporters. It happened during a spontaneous pitch invasion to mark Celtic’s third goal, which effectively curtailed a season that had hitherto brought the rare prospect of romance, a first Hearts title since 1960. …”
NYT/ATH
Guardian: Grim denouement of stunning Scottish Premiership title race must prompt shift in attitudes
YouTube: CELTIC WIN TITLE IN LAST-DAY THRILLER
“Failure to wrench the title from the Glasgow giants is no cause for remorse given that Celtic and Rangers have been shaken from their lethargy. Another final-day showdown, another final-day heartbreak. The pain has been spread over 61 years, but that won’t make it any easier to bear for Hearts who, having been top for 250 days of the Scottish Premiership season, missed out on the title again. There was, of course, a Celtic penalty for handball and a critical video assistant referee decision that went their way, but, on this occasion, neither provided the controversy. That came from the confusion as the game was ended by a pitch invasion with 23 seconds, plus whatever else the referee felt needed to be added, still to play. …”
Guardian
NYT/ATH: Celtic deny Hearts historic Scottish Premiership title with dramatic victory in decider
YouTube: OFFICIAL Last 15 Minutes, Celebrations & Pitch Invasion As Celtic WIN THE TITLE | Celtic 3-1 Hearts
“The decline has been stark. Liverpool are 25 points adrift of the 84 they accumulated when winning the Premier League title last season. Their current tally of 60 league goals scored is 28 fewer than in 2024-25, and works out at 1.67 per game, the club’s lowest rate since 2015-16 (1.66). At the other end, Arne Slot’s fourth-placed side have already conceded 48 times — seven more than last season. If they ship three goals over their remaining two matches, it will become Liverpool’s worst defensive return in a 38-game Premier League season. This was always likely to be a difficult campaign following the death of Diogo Jota in July. Liverpool were the only club with grief counsellors at their training complex throughout pre-season, a backdrop that can’t be overlooked when assessing the past nine months. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
“… After looking at big-chance creation and conversion last week, we will now, following events in east London last Sunday, dive into fouls won and conceded from corners. As usual, the article that follows is long but detailed, so please settle down and enjoy it all — or jump to a specific few clubs that you are interested in. Anyway, if you haven’t heard already: Premier League corners are broken. Inswingers, blocking the goalkeeper, wrestling in multiple parts of the box and several missed fouls seem to accompany most of them these days. The need for better legislation and stricter officiating to prevent moments that have become all too familiar is not lost on anyone. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
Mexico and South Africa playing the opening match of the 2010 World Cup.
“Playing in Mexico’s top men’s club football division, Liga MX, is not the most common career path for African footballers. However, there is a long history between Mexico and the African continent, including in football. That connection will surely deepen this coming June when at least three African countries make Mexico their ‘home base’ for the 2026 World Cup. The first player in history to play for a Mexican professional football club was a Moroccan footballer named Mohamed ‘Abdul’ Abderrazak. Little is known about him, but he played at Club Puebla in 1951. The most successful era for African players in the Liga MX came in the early to late 1990s, when some of Africa’s finest players came to play in the league. The most famous were Zambian striker Kalusha Bwalya, who played for Club América in Mexico City, and Cameroonians François Omam-Biyik and Jean-Claude Pagal. …”
Africa Is a Country
“‘Minimum interference, maximum benefit’ was the promise when VAR was first introduced. Those were the words used by David Elleray, the technical director of the International Football Association Board (IFAB), in a presentation to journalists at Wembley Stadium in March 2017 to justify the profound change the game was about to undergo. … The logic was clear enough. Examples such as Diego Maradona’s handball against England or Thierry Henry’s against the Republic of Ireland were held up as proof. Under this new system, those headline mistakes could be surgically removed from the game, keeping everything else intact. The laser precision of technology was all that was required. …”
NYT/ATH
“All too often a football match doesn’t live up to the hype. As Southampton’s players danced on the pitch and their fans sang about a return to Wembley and a chance to gain promotion to the Premier League, opponents Middlesbrough were crestfallen and wondering how it had ended like this after a week dominated by a spying row involving the two teams. Over two energy-sapping legs and more than three-and-a-half hours of football, Southampton required a 116th-minute winner from Shea Charles to come from behind on the night and eliminate Middlesbrough from the Championship play-offs and advance to the final against Hull City on Saturday, May 23. …”
NYT/ATH
“The Butterfly Effect — which is, loosely, when minor changes to the initial conditions of a complex system can result in radically different outcomes — was most prominently researched in relation to weather models in the 1960s. But it can, perhaps, also be applied to football teams — and Victor Lindelof. Did you notice that the Swedish centre-back is a midfielder now, which is working out quite well? And while this is an interesting development in its own right (and much more on this later), it also tells us something about what it means for the systems used in the game. Let’s take Aston Villa, whose central midfielders play an important role in their build-up. Operating at the tip of the deep triangles that Unai Emery sets up on either side of the goalkeeper, their task is to help regulate the progression of the ball from Villa’s own third into their opponent’s half. …”
NYT/ATH
Johan Cruyff’s butterfly effect on Pep Guardiola
YouTube: The Craziest Butterfly Effects in Football
Johan Cruyff
“If there was ever a dream scenario for Barcelona to win La Liga, it had to be with victory over Real Madrid. That Sunday’s game came at the end of such a tumultuous week for their Clasico rivals — including the dressing-room fight between Aurelien Tchouameni and Federico Valverde — made the prospect even more appealing. Madrid’s problems did not go unnoticed at the Camp Nou. Among the invitees in the VIP seats were World Boxing Council president Mauricio Sulaiman and Spanish boxer Sandor Martin. The latter had appeared on local radio stations, ‘analysing’ what happened between Tchouameni and Valverde. Popcorn was handed out to the press — this is not regular club policy — as if to say, ‘Sit back and enjoy the show’. …”
NYT/ATH
NYT/ATH: Lamine Yamal and a Palestinian flag at Barcelona’s title celebrations (Video)
“PORTUGAL’s Primeira Liga is always a three-horse race between the country’s biggest football clubs – Benfica and Sporting and this season’s champions, Porto. The gap between this trio and the rest of the league shows no sign of shrinking; in 2025-26 fourth-placed Braga currently stand 19 points worse off than Sporting, who have finished bottom of what is a three-team super league within a league. José Mourinho’s Benfica are the only unbeaten still side in the Primeira. Porto’s last title win was in 2022 and since then, they have had some problems to deal with. …”
Game of the People
“Barcelona are celebrating winning La Liga for the second season in a row, after victory over Real Madrid confirmed their successful title defence. Hansi Flick’s side defeated their Clasico rivals 2-0 at the Camp Nou on Sunday, further stretching their lead at the top of the table to 14 points with just three games to play, making it impossible to catch them. In Flick’s debut campaign last term, Barca won the domestic treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana titles. They also won La Liga in 2022-23, making this three league titles in four seasons. Here, The Athletic’s Barcelona correspondents Pol Ballus and Laia Cervello Herrero tell the story of their latest success. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
NYT/ATH – Barcelona 2 Real Madrid 0: Hansi Flick’s side wrap up La Liga title in El Clasico
YouTube: FC BARCELONA 2 – 0 REAL MADRID | HIGHLIGHTS LALIGA EA SPORTS
“No matter what happens in Arsenal’s final three Premier League matches, David Raya has earned at least a share of the division’s Golden Glove award for a third successive season. Arsenal’s goalkeeper has kept 17 clean sheets in the 35 games so far. The only player who could match him is Manchester City’s Gianluigi Donnarumma, who is on 13 and has four league fixtures left, making it increasingly likely that Raya will be the outright winner for 2025-26. He would be just the fourth goalkeeper to receive the award three seasons in a row after Liverpool’s Pepe Reina (2006, 2007, 2008), and City’s pair of Joe Hart (2011, 2012, 2013) and Ederson (2020, 2021, 2022). The numbers are startling. …”
NYT/ATH (Video)
3. Newcastle United (Home, 1-0 win, April 25)
“Your manager has fallen out with the sporting director and results have gone awry, so you replace him. Easily done, it happens. But then it turns out that the new manager could not be more ill-suited to the squad, results go awry and so you replace him. A bad leader would hesitate and hope things worked out, but you are ruthless and decisive and turn to a manager who was once a youth player at the club and has some anecdotes about the old days. But it turns out some people think his methods are old‑fashioned and results go awry, so you replace him. And this time you pull a masterstroke. You get in a bloke who saved a team in not dissimilar circumstances last season, who takes 15 points from his first nine league games in charge, lifting you six clear of the relegation zone. If you beat Newcastle at home on Sunday you’ll be safe. You are a genius, your recruitment skills unmatched. …”
Guardian
“THE TWO second legs may not have been as captivating as the first, but nobody could complain at the overall quality of the penultimate stage of the 2005-06 UEFA Champions League. For Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain, their success underlined that they are probably the two best teams in Europe this season. Bayern Munich, arguably, are also in the continent’s top three, but they looked decidedly pedestrian against Luis Enrique’s livewires. PSG’s speed and energy, a feature of their approach these days, was too much for a tired-looking Bayern. They had Harry Kane sorted out, although the England captain finally got a sight of goal in added time, but it was too little, too late. As for Arsenal, they beat Atlético Madrid at their own game, playing them tight and matching them muscle-for-muscle. Arsenal have shown this season they have more savvy than in previous campaigns that have promised much and delivered little. …”
Game of the People
Guardian: PSG v Arsenal: six factors that could decide the Champions League final
“Welcome to the latest edition of The Alternative Premier League Table, where each week, The Athletic analyses the entire division through a specific lens. Matchday 35 saw teams across the Premier League score 23 of their 46 big chances. That 50 per cent conversion rate is the third best of the season after Matchday 5 (59 per cent) and 20 (55 per cent). Opta defines a big chance as ‘a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, usually a one-on-one scenario or a shot from close range with a clear path to goal and low-to-moderate pressure’. So, in this week’s table, we compare how teams fared when it comes to creating and converting big chances across the first 18 games to the last 17, roughly a first half versus second half of the season. …”
NYT/ATH
Scissors Kick 