Except it isn’t a once great musician we’ll be watching when the full performance comes out. It isn’t Walk the Line with Johnny Cash. It isn’t A Complete Unknown with Bob Dylan. Nor is it Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. It’s a set of men (perhaps less tortured). Eleven or eighteen, depending on how deep you want to go.

Lawlor is Rodin in many ways. He gets to sculpt a football team though, rather than mess with clay, terracotta and bronze. He gets to test his near-38-year-old mind on the finer points of EFL League Two football.

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Hiring him, or rather promoting him, in January 2026 on an interim basis was either a stroke of luck or a slightly exploitative manoeuvre given that Lawlor has been here before, post-Scott Brown (September 2023) and post-Charlie Adam (December 2024), albeit for a combined total of less than a fortnight and just two games.

The thing is, Lawlor brought more invention to the side in those two games than previous managers have over a full season. You could see it in the body language, the way the players ran out of the tunnel. No fear. Excitement.

The 2024 Boxing Day win over Chesterfield (2-0) courtesy of Matty Virtue and ‘crazy’ Kian Harratt may prove to be a lucky charm given the start to Fleetwood Town’s season in 2026/27 (Chesterfield in both cup and league).

And the Football League Trophy win (again 2-0) over Tranmere (5th September 2023) with the help of ex-greats, Jayden Stockley and Phoenix Patterson, aptly showed Lawlor to be a lover of free-flowing football.

In March of this year Fleetwood did the decent thing and appointed Matt Lawlor on a two-and-a-bit-years’ permanent contract. Always the ‘man in the building’ doing other things, a little like Matt Damon scribbling on the hallway chalkboard in Good Will Hunting, Lawlor seems to think differently.

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He has high standards too. Some of his post-match interviews, now a further 20 games in to his Fleetwood tenure, are carried out with the calm intensity of someone who is revelling in the limelight.

On the April 25, after the 2-2 draw away to Shrewsbury Town in the penultimate game of the 2025/26 season, Lawlor gave his most telling interview: “… Incredibly frustrated … controllable moments that we’re just gifting now… It’s becoming a habit isn’t it [drawing]… Pre-season …I’m telling you it won’t be like this… A terrible, terrible habit that…we need to crack…

“It must be a mentality that needs to flip. I’ve told them there’s been five or six years of below-averageness at this club, if I’m honest. And that’s really unkind of me, like, I know there’s a lot of hard work that’s gone into that, but it’s been a failing club for five or six years. It’s a reset. I’m telling you it’s a reset this summer…

“I’m gonna reiterate, I will work, staff will work, players will work as hard as anyone in this country. I’ll work everyone to make sure this gets right… Success always, always, always for me means winning. Always.

“You learn in training. You learn around the ground. I literally watch and think about everything. Like, I watch how they operate, how they eat food, how they interact with each other, how they interact with the public, how they interact with the fans. Everything matters to me. Everything.

“So if we’re gonna create the culture that I want to create, everything matters. And I learn every single minute of every single day. I’ve learnt a lot of positives.”

Lawlor is a man finally given his big chance, the highest professional position of his career, and he does not wish to have regrets. He does not wish to do a ‘Starmer’ – be full of U-turns and small dabs to the canvas. In his expression, we hear the roar of desire and craving, yearning and thirstiness.

He is keen to prove his theorem to others, to map out a blueprint that Fleetwood hasn’t seen since John Sheridan and Joey Barton, circa 2018 to 2020. His core players, the old boys, are Jay Lynch, Danny Andrew, Shaun Rooney, Ched Evans and Ronan Coughlan. But it is the never-been-here-before players who need to excite and show steadfastness if this rocket is to reach orbit.

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It is 30-year-old Andy Cannon (formerly of high-achieving Wrexham), 25-year-old Kane Thompson-Sommers (the MK Dons midfielder and Bristol Rovers loanee), soon-to-be 24-year-old striker Josh Thomas (former Wales under-21 speed merchant) and young defender Jake Batty who must help form a new spine.

Bed these in with the promising youth (Crispin McLean, Raff Cirino, Conor Haughey – all just 19 years old) and Fleetwood would seem to have hunger and talent in abundance. And that’s before we discuss the importance of midfielders Mark Helm, Harrison Neal and Lewis McCann.

Lawlor knows he has a leaner squad now, however. He knows that any injury is critical. Take Haughey and his mere 10 minutes of pre-season football before sustaining a knee injury. Haughey, the young man who thrived last season when given the opportunity to display great leadership at centre half.

Hearing Lawlor talk is surely a fillip for anyone though. There is a wariness and prudence to him (the bags under his eyes testament to this) – yes – but bursting out forcefully is the joy of managing a team, a squad of players, who may just inherit his high standards and believe that FTFC can finish in the top seven and earnestly dabble with promotion.

It would be fitting and fantastic if only to other clubs’ men in the building who often get overlooked. Lawlor has a lot to prove, but it’s extremely evident that he’s here to shake things up in his first full season, rather than whimper and follow the last half dozen years.

At one stage of the 2026 World Cup, Argentina could have been blamed for economic uncertainty, energy prices, climate change, Pique cheating on Shakira, and the death of Mufasa. No matter the winning mentality, no matter the seizing of big moments. No matter the eternal inevitability of that chap from Rosario, it had become about always finding a way to tear something else down, rather than focus on something admirable.

Well, this is the age of social media, with over 17 billion impressions during the World Cup. That’s quite a lot of tweets, reels, mud-slinging and self-anointed analysts, sticking their swords into anyone they could reach from their armchairs. And most often their pointed tips reached for Luis Scaloni’s band of villains. Painted as cheats, hooligans and any other dart used to pin on the South Americans- this tournament allowed people to justify the stereotypes

​With AI-generated videos, fake images and conspiracy theories spreading rapidly online, the importance of fact-checking, avoiding mob-mentality and just trying to hang out with people who had a basic knowledge of sport not toxic hype, were now more important than ever to cut through the noise.

But let’s not remove emotion completely from the palette. We can’t paint a masterpiece if we’re using safe and dull colours. We need to unleash some emotion. As British writer and sociologist David Goldblatt aptly puts it in his brilliant book The Age of Football: “Certainly, there is no shortage of irrational, myopic, deluded and obsessive behaviour in the football world.” But just as significantly: “Football is often a distraction; in some ways that is the point.”

And so, to a mouth-watering prospect of a final, and what was your poison? What emotion would you be consumed with?  Argentina. What a team. Hard and resilient. Ready for a dog-fight. Never ever, ever, ever giving up. Hunting in packs. Ready to dismiss haters. Messi, Messi, Messi.

Spain. What a team. Luis del la Fuente’s vertical positional play- possession with purpose. Explosive wingers, faster tempo and aggressive pressing. All on the back of technical freedom meaning there are no rigid positions. It starts with a slow circulation then some vertical passing. Before you know it there are some quick exchanges and then an immediate attack.  Boom- you’re dead. This was quite simply a modern evolution of the tiki-taka days of a decade ago.

​In the end, the best team won the tournament. And the final wasn’t even close. Spain had 65% possession and completed twice as many passes as their opposition. They also had 20 shots to Argentina’s one, making sure the reigning champions offered no attacking threat. Despite finishing 1-0, it was arguably one of the most statistically dominant performances ever seen in a World Cup final. Argentina lost their cool. They couldn’t keep up. They won man, not ball. And let more stereotypes take over.

The problem with this, and all of the other moments building up to the brute physicality that accompanied their game- is that it took away from Spain’s genius. Still, La Roja etched their way into history. The first team ever to win the Euros and then the following World Cup on two separate occasions. Class.

The biggest viral moment of this World Cup wasn’t a goal. It was a 19-year-old photograph of Lionel Messi holding baby Lamine Yamal, just days before the two faced each other in the final. Before and after the game, they embraced. A symbolic moment and passing of the torch. Messi, having given his all at 39, his mortality on display, hugging the would-be successor to the throne.

The Argentinian left the field, having broken many World Cup records. The oldest scorer of a hat-trick, the longest scoring streak ever, the most goals from outside the area, the most assists in the knockout phase. Yet, the team always wins, and Lamine the Dream, who may not have had the best tournament, was the one who got to stay on the field. And take in the post-match celebrations with football’s ultimate prize. Messi will always have Qatar. Who knows how many other tournaments Yamal will conquer.

One could argue these were the best two teams in the tournament. Yet that is also harsh on France and England who possessed their own beauty. Look at the 3rd and 4th place play off. No longer shackled, each team allowed to unleash their attacking capabilities. These are the top 4 ranked teams in the world for a reason. And any of them being in the final would have been justified. Those are the fine margins in football. And WC semi-finals generally hand on a knife-edge, which could have gone either way.

And the rest of the tournament? Where to begin? A first World Cup with 48 teams. A first for Cape Verde, Curaçao, Jordan, and Uzbekistan. The most red cards ever (15) and goals scored (313). Fine, there were more games, but that meant more action, more drama. More reason for online, studio and bar opinions. The emotion.

Records and history continued to be made. Cristiano Ronaldo was the first ever player to score in six different tournaments. Kylian Mbappe became the all-time top scorer. This edition also attracted over 6 million spectators, surpassing the previous record set in the US in 1994. This was the first ever tournament to be hosted by three nations and Mexico are the first ever country to have hosted 3 different World Cups.

Post match crowd celebrations brought fans closer to their players. Norway led the way with their Viking Row ritual. England belted out cult favourite Wonderwall and France synchronised clapping. Japanese fans even stayed behind after their players left, to clean the stadiums.

Ghana’s witch doctor went viral and made predictions that were less than desirable, stating that Cape Verde would knock Argentina out and that Portugal would win the World Cup. Still, the power of the mystical and unknown made no one question him, until after matters panned out.

Hydration breaks were cursed at within homes and booed within the stadiums. As sponsors licked their lips, players and staff recuperated around tactics, digital devices and the urge to find ways to improve play. Rumour has it they also drank water.

With many actors, musicians and sports stars hailing from the US, the celebrities gathered in the crowd at many a game. From David Beckham’s influence on the MLS to Hollywood embracing football through the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell and Natalie Portman, the game has spread to this continent with the World Cup stitching all the fever together.

Perhaps it was a plethora of hate and trolling on social media. But then again, people were engaged online. And the World Cup still mattered. What a time to watch football- even if the time differences were a little ridiculous for many a fanatical nation. And if things go FIFA’s way, which they almost always do, there could be 64 teams at the next one.

That’s a lot of hydration breaks.

Without further ado, read on as we take an early look at each of the four top divisions in England, starting with the Premier League.

Manchester United fancied to topple Arsenal

The ante-post market for the Premier League paints an intriguing picture for people who are inclined towards wagering on professional football.

The latest online sports betting market rates Arsenal as the 6/4 favourites to win the English top flight title for the second consecutive season.

However, only Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City have successfully defended the title since the Premier League was launched in 1992.

The Gunners were fortunate that several of their main rivals underperformed last season and are unlikely to be afforded the same luxury this time around.

Manchester United improved massively under Michael Carrick after he replaced Ruben Amorim as manager and they are a good bet at odds of 13/2 to topple Arsenal.

Mowbray can improve Blackburn’s fortunes

Blackburn Rovers’ fall from grace under owners Venky’s has been distressing to watch for fans of one of the English Football League’s founder members.

They narrowly avoided relegation to League One last season, with points deductions for other clubs the only thing keeping them in the second tier.

However, the decision to appoint Tony Mowbray for his second spell as manager could be the catalyst for a change in their fortunes.

Mowbray was a popular figure during his first stint in charge and knows what it takes to build a successful squad in the Championship.

With the play-offs expanding from third to eighth place next term, Rovers could be worth chancing to secure a spot in the post-season shoot-out.

Luton are the value bet in League One

After failing to secure an immediate return to the Championship last season, Luton Town are rated as 8/1 shots to win the League One title this time around.

They improved significantly after Jack Wilshere was appointed manager last October, ending the season with an impressive 11-match unbeaten run.

They ultimately missed out on the play-offs by one point, but look a good bet to mount a strong promotion challenge this season.

Wilshere secured his first managerial trophy by guiding Luton by leading the club to a 3-1 victory over Stockport County in the Vertu Trophy final at Wembley Stadium in April.

He recently rejected an approach from Leicester City to remain with Luton and that decision could prove to be a shrewd one at the end of the campaign.

Walsall can make it third time lucky

New Walsall manager Lee Grant has been tasked with reviving a club that has had two promotion challenges implode after leading League Two in each of the last two seasons.

The 43-year-old previously served as a forwards’ coach during Ipswich Town’s back-to-back promotions and most recently managed Huddersfield Town.

Grant has already made some shrewd summer signings including centre-back James Connolly, who signed a two-year deal following his departure from Crewe Alexandra.

Connolly joins midfielders Sven Sprangler and Lewis Simper along with forward Andy Dallas at the Midlands club for next season.

Odds of 11/2 to win promotion are a tempting proposition given that Walsall are expected to make further signings before the transfer window closes.

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Germany’s penalty kick success came from emotional control, suppression of fear, internal discipline and belief in inevitability. Penalties were the moment when Germany’s national football character, the myth of German football steel, became visible in its purest form. And then, after one of the hardest-fought matches ever for the German Eleven, with Rummenigge hobbling off the bench injured to score and Klaus Fischer hitting the overhead kick he’d rehearsed his whole life, Stielike misses.

He falls to the ground, face in the grass, sobbing, covering his face in shame. The two players who pick him up from the ground, Toni Schumacher and Pierre Littbarski, console him. The rest of the team seemingly stands frozen, as if Stielike has broken a sacred oath. You could feel the tension through the screen. Some of the German players looked as if, in another era, they’d have delivered a merciful coup de grâce.

Then Schumacher does the impossible and saves two penalty kicks. He shakes his fist in the air defiantly at the French while nodding to his teammate Stielike, as Littbarski, holding Stielike up,  jumps around joyously, and suddenly the entire emotional order of the team snaps back into place. Stielike is “redeemed,” the shame is forcibly wiped clean and the old German football myth reasserts itself. That’s why that moment is unforgettable. It wasn’t just football, it was a Wagnerian ritual of death and resurrection, only without the grail, because Paolo Rossi and Italy walked off with that later.

Today, if a German player misses a penalty, he posts a smiling apology on Instagram and gets a “stay strong bro” reply from the federation account. It’s just a different time and a different society. The Stielike moment belongs to a Germany that no longer exists, literally, as he was on the West German team, the most successful national soccer program of the Cold War era.

I’m arguing that German football can be framed as a sociological arc. And Germans, please, I am arguing as a Germany and Mannschaft-lover myself, take a look at my last name, OK? Ich kann Deutsch sprechen, obwohl ich in Chicago geboren wurde.

As West Germany, it was a nation that played with existential urgency because it had existential urgency. From 1954 to 1990, West Germany’s greatness came from a lineage of leaders who embodied the same national goal and desire: Fritz Walter’s postwar stoicism, Uwe Seeler’s relentless will, Franz Beckenbauer’s imperial calm, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s heroic defiance, Lothar Matthäus’s cold authority… different generations but the same fire.

Every generation carried the weight of a divided nation, the burden of history and the need to prove something to the world. That pressure forged football steel. In ten World Cups they produced three World Cup Championships, and they reached the top four teams eight out of ten times.

The great, proud moment of national relief, unification in October 1990, was also the moment the fire starting going out. The unified German team has been technically competent but spiritually hollow. Sterile possession, no incisiveness, no hunger, no risk, little fire in their belly. There have been flashes since reunification, but they have come largely from players who did not grow up inside the comfortable, post-historical German mainstream, from immigrants and children of immigrants who still had something to prove.

But, the whole point of this essay is that this is a good thing. This is a positive thing for Germany. This version of the German team is clearly the most diverse looking team in its history. It has amazing diversity. Gut gemacht, Vaterland! That is definitely something to be proud of. Be more proud of this than whether you win some lousy soccer game in a lousy FIFA tournament.

Indeed, the Özil/Khedira/Boateng era briefly brought back that chip-on-the-shoulder energy. But once those players became symbols of a relaxed, cosmopolitan, self-satisfied Germany, even that edge softened. A nation that no longer needs football to express its honor to the world will never again produce a team that plays as if its life depends on it. That is, in many ways, a good thing. Yes Germans, please, I am saying it is a good thing.

The reasons for the team’s extraordinary excellence from 1954 to 1990 were geopolitical and clearly not sustainable beyond unification. It is time for fans of the Mannschaft to come back down to earth and recalibrate their expectations, especially after the team was knocked out of three successive World Cups by South Korea, Japan and Paraguay.

The joke among my football buddies is that this World Cup was expanded as a thank-you to the German teams of the past, to ensure there is enough weak opposition in the first round to help the German Eleven advance this time. (I chastised them for saying that! „Zeigt doch etwas Respekt für die frühere Spitzenleistung!“) If you remove the Turkish-origin striker Deniz Undav, elimination might have been a distinct possibility anyway.

The 1954 World Cup victory was a symbol for an entire society. Germany had been a despised nation in Europe because of World War II and had been banned from international sports immediately afterward. The 1954 World Cup was their football team’s first real chance to prove themselves and show that Germany was back on the world stage in a meaningful and constructive manner.

Through the fierce dedication and raw will shown by its footballers (and possibly steroids, courtesy of a team doctor who said it was Vitamin C injections, leaving eight players, after the tournament, with severe jaundice and two ultimately dead from liver cirrhosis), the team represented a moral resurgence. The German people celebrated their return to the world stage. The war was behind them, the Nazis had been punished and there was new leadership and a new direction. The victory represented a kind of Year One.

The unbeatable 1990 team with Matthäus, Voeller, Klinsmann, Brehme and the other stars, was, basically, a West German team. After 1990, we switch from a West German to a unified German team. This is when things change forever. This is when German football begins to suck a bit. It seems to suck a bit now. They couldn’t beat Ecuador or Paraguay in 2026.

In 1994, Bulgaria eliminated Germany. In 1998, it was Croatia. In 2002, they fielded a weak team blessed with an easy schedule that was manhandled by Brazil in the final – take Oliver Kahn out of the picture and the humiliation would have come earlier. In 2006, they rode a wave of euphoria as hosts, getting the usual boost home countries can expect from FIFA, but crashed out to Italy. Coach Klinsmann’s refusal to start Kahn looked, to many of us, like an ego thing; with Kahn, they might have won 2006. Kahn was a throwback, with fire in his belly.

In 2010, they played an anemic match against Spain and went out. In 2014, all the pieces finally fell together, but the title still hinged on a fluke: a sensational goal by a player who had been mercilessly mocked by a rival German club’s fans as a “fat fairy.” In 2018, they were bounced by South Korea, a team with fire in its belly. In 2022, they were bounced by Japan, another team with fire in its belly.

In 2026, they conceded an equalizer to Curaçao before going berserk and running up the score to humiliate an island nation, which was not humiliated at all, but proud to have equalized. They then barely beat Ivory Coast thanks to the Gerd Müller-like efforts of a striker of Turkish background, Deniz Undav. They lost to Ecuador. Did I mention Paraguay?

Once again, a player from outside the comfortable German mainstream was carrying the team, as much as he could. Basically, lovers of the Mannschaft: your team became softer because your history stopped hurting. And that’s a good thing! The players who still resemble the old West German archetype, the ones with something to prove, with pressure in their lives, have been trying to save the program, but it’s been an uphill battle.

So what is the solution? There is none. You don’t need a solution, the situation is quite good! The Germans had a reason to be the greatest team in the world from 1954 to 1990. A different reason resurfaced briefly around 2010, but that was contingent and unstable. Brazil and Argentina are perennial favorites because they still draw from a struggling working class that produces players with that fire in their bellies and something to prove. South Korea and Japan carry the weight of Asian expectations…it’s all about desire.

History and sociology fueled German football’s desire, and certain inspirational players tapped into this and created something extraordinary. A unified and integrated Germany, where immigrants are increasingly welcomed into the dominant culture, will continue Germany’s social progress but, perhaps, may not ensure the football success of the Cold War past.

So let’s all celebrate “sucky” German football, it is a manifestation of how Germany continues to change for the better. Ein Prosit, ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit! Here’s a toast to you Germany, and to your future!

But, let’s also be honest, and as an American guy I would be remiss in not mentioning this: German soccer folks and fans have openly mocked American soccer/football for a long time. There is a concept called karma, my German football lovers. To a certain generation of football fans outside of Europe, there might be an undeniably delicious irony in this collapse, a feeling of “karma has a flawless memory.” I don’t feel this way, but I’m just saying…I think it’s called Schadenfreude.

For decades, American soccer was a frequent punchline for German players, fans and pundits alike, dismissed with a smirk as a secondary sport in a nation that just didn’t “get” the beautiful game. So, watching a powerhouse nation that once mocked American footballing culture slide into its own era of stagnation might also be perceived as a cosmic balancing of the scales. I prefer the sociological approach.

But, in a sport where arrogance is a dangerous currency, watching a giant stumble against teams they once would have brushed aside proves that what goes around eventually comes back around. If you spent years teasing others for not being part of the global elite, it turns out that losing your own competitive edge might bite a little harder. Die Mannschaft…you blew three penalty kicks against Paraguay.

Es tut mir leid, ich konnte nicht widerstehen. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Prior to 1992, the Japan Soccer League (JSL), beginning in 1965, was the top competition for clubs in the country to compete in, though it was largely an amateur league, with clubs being backed by a major corporation, and the players being employees. This system was shattered in 1992, with the formation of the J. League, as 8 of the JSL’s first division clubs, 1 from the second division, and a newly formed club, came together to bring Japan its first ever professional football league. The inaugural season would come soon after, beginning in 1993, and history was made on the 15th of May as Yokohama Marinos took on Verdy Kawasaki to kick it all off.

1992 was also significant for Japan’s football growth as they hosted the AFC Asian Cup at the end of the same year, winning their first ever title against Saudi Arabia in the final, as the country saw success for the first time prior to the new league even beginning, and the national team was already making small steps to becoming what we now see as a world class side.

It was an instant sensation, with the domestic popularity booming, while international attention was attracted with the signing of foreign stars to J. League clubs, such as Gary Lineker who ultimately retired in Japan, and Zico, who came out of retirement to play for Kashima Antlers. However, following its initial success, there was a significant decline in interest, brought about alongside economic turmoil in the country, which urged those in charge of the league to reevaluate their plans and find new ways to develop the game in Japan.

Two key solutions were brought about by this re-evaluation, the first of which was the J. League Hundred Year Vision, a long-term plan that set a goal to reach by 2092, which will be the league’s 100th season, in which they aim to have 100 professional clubs in Japan. The second solution was massive restructuring of the J. League, expanding the top division to 16 clubs, and the launch of a second division in 1999 containing 10 clubs.

The late 2000s brought about further development for Japanese football, with the top division expanding to 18 teams in 2005, but more importantly, the importance of the AFC Champions League rising in Japan. Until this point, Asia’s Champions League hadn’t been the focus of clubs in the nation, though in 2007, Urawa Red Diamonds became the first J. League side to win the competition, and Gamba Osaka became the second the following year. In 2009, AFC would award the J. League the honour of the highest ranked league in the continent, securing 4 spots in the Champions League for the country.

2014 would then see the introduction of the J. League’s third division, and 10 years later, after a multitude of changes to the football pyramid’s structure, Japan would settle on a structure containing 3 professional divisions, each with 20 teams. The country is now undoubtedly considered one of, if not the top league in Asia, with only Saudi Arabia capable of comparing.

Recent years has seen a number of stars come out of the J. League and move to Europe, with some examples including Kaoru Mitoma, who signed for Brighton from Kawasaki Frontale, and the set of successful players who joined Celtic (Daizen Maeda, Kyogo Furuhashi, and Reo Hatate), during the leadership of former Yokohama Marinos manager Ange Postecoglou.

The growth of the J. League has been hugely impactful for the improvement of the country’s national team, as although their first attempt to qualify for the World Cup with professional players failed in 1994, their second attempt in 1998 saw them qualify for the first time in their history. The nation would go on to lose all of their matches in the group stage, though with a tough group that involved Argentina, as well as Croatia and Jamaica, qualifying was seen as enough of a step to show progress.

The creation of a strong league allowed for children in Japan to grow up hoping to play for local clubs which they were seeing grow before their very eyes, and the dream of winning major trophies with a team from their own town or city felt possible. Youth academies began to produce top talents that transformed the Japanese national team into a serious contender for continental tournaments, regularly able to win the top competition of Asia.

Going into the 2000s, the national team struck new ground, much like its domestic league, bringing back the Asian Cup for the second time in their history in 2000, then going on to co-host the 2002 World Cup, along with South Korea. They would then make it out of the group stage for the first time, exiting the competition in the Round of 16 against Turkey, and have qualified for every World Cup since, making it to the knockout rounds on 4 occasions. However, Japan is yet to make it to the Quarter Finals, something they will certainly be aiming for in this year’s iteration of the tournament.

Japan has stood out in Asia due to their focus on youth development, they are no longer reliant on importing aging stars from across the globe and are instead turning their own players into desirable talents wanted by top clubs in Europe. They have managed to separate themselves from many other top countries in Asia in this regard, as leagues such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar may have bolstered their domestic league’s popularity with the introduction of world class players at the end of their careers, such as Xavi, Sadio Mane, and of course Cristiano Ronaldo, yet they aren’t seeing any improvements at international tournaments, as the fans are following these players instead of the clubs themselves. How can you expect young fans to grow up wanting to play for their country, when the players they watch in the stadiums have been brought in from elsewhere?

By massively investing in its domestic league, Japan has evolved overtime in every aspect of the game, from its grassroots infrastructure that have allowed youth academies to flourish as the culture grows, to the prominence of Japanese players in top leagues across the world. They have proven that through extensive planning and investment into supporting a strong football culture, all levels of football can see positive outcomes, whether it be at a club level in the top division, a local amateur level among community-based teams, or the national team that the whole country backs, change is possible if systems are brought it to support it, and Japan have set an example that more countries need to take note of, and follow suit,

Fresh from securing top spot in their group thanks to a 2-0 victory over Panama at MetLife Stadium, the venue that will also host the 2026 FIFA World Cup final, Thomas Tuchel’s side have strengthened their credentials to go the distance.

However, while England will hope to return to New Jersey for the showpiece, many supporters have questioned FIFA’s decision to stage the final at MetLife, with the stadium attracting criticism throughout the tournament. England vs DR Congo Odds examine the latest prices ahead of Wednesday’s knockout clash.

Why fans turned on MetLife

Start with the pitch. MetLife normally hosts the New York Giants and Jets of the National Football League (NFL), and its artificial turf carries a grim reputation. Players call it the ‘MetLife curse’ after a run of serious injuries, including Giants receiver Malik Nabers tearing his anterior cruciate ligament there. A temporary grass pitch went down for the tournament, but it hasn’t won everyone over. France midfielder Adrien Rabiot called the surface “hard and quite rigid”, and said it felt “more like an artificial surface”. MetLife was one of eight host venues that swapped artificial turf for a temporary grass pitch, so the surface was clearly a known concern.

Then there’s getting there. The ground sits in the Meadowlands, around five miles from Manhattan with no real walk-up, and one report found a Penn Station round-trip that usually costs about $13 going for roughly $98 during the tournament. Drive in and the car parks swallow the approach. Walk, and you can’t. The mood hasn’t helped. Fans have branded it “soulless” and “one of the worst in the country”.

Where fans would rather send it

Four grounds keep coming up as the venue supporters would swap it for. Each brings something MetLife can’t.

Estadio Azteca

Mexico City’s grand old ground is the only one to have staged two World Cup finals, in 1970 and 1986, and in 2026 it becomes the first to host matches at three men’s World Cups. Diego Maradona and Pele both lit it up, it still holds 83,000, and fans call it a football cathedral. The snag is the altitude. At 2,200m the thin air drains the legs and carries the ball further, the place is showing its age, and it’s hosting the opener this time, not the final. It only reopened this year after a lengthy refit, and runs under a different name for the World Cup.

AT&T Stadium

Dallas was the runner-up for the final, and the appeal is obvious. It led the bidding for a while before MetLife pipped it. AT&T hosted England’s first game of their World Cup campaign, where they beat Croatia 4-2 in a display that rocked the UK football odds. The stadium holds up to 94,000, the biggest of the lot, and its retractable roof and air-conditioning would shut out the July heat and any summer storms. It also stages more games than any other venue, a semi-final included. The catch is the setting, 17 miles from downtown Dallas, so it’s hardly a stroll from the city.

SoFi Stadium

SoFi opened in 2020 and, at a reported $5.5 billion, is the most expensive stadium ever built, with supporters rating it among the best anywhere. It needed a temporary grass pitch laid over its usual surface for the tournament, and its capacity is smaller than MetLife’s, but on looks and atmosphere it’s hard to beat.

Lincoln Financial Field

The home of the Philadelphia Eagles, known as ‘the Linc’, has one thing the turf venues can’t match: a permanent grass pitch, so no temporary surface to worry about. It’s loud, it has character, and unlike the New Jersey site, it actually feels like a football ground. The catch is size, as it’s the smallest of these contenders.

The verdict

The fans have a point on feel and surface. MetLife can come across as a corporate bowl in a car park, the pitch questions are fair, and at 82,500 it isn’t even the biggest stadium in the running. But FIFA isn’t shifting the final now. Soulless or not, on 19 July MetLife gets the showpiece, and the row will rumble on long after the trophy goes up.

The 2026 World Cup is the largest edition of the tournament ever staged: 48 nations, 104 fixtures, spread across 16 cities in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. England are among the sides travelling with genuine expectations, and fans following England top goalscorer betting will already have views on who carries the goal threat in the squad. With so many contenders across the draw, football odds reflect just how open the competition looks heading into the group stage.

In this article, we look at everything the FIFA Fan Festival offers in 2026, and why it might be the best way to experience the World Cup without a ticket.

What is the FIFA Fan Festival?

The FIFA Fan Festival is the official fan hub of the World Cup, running throughout the tournament in host cities across all three nations. FIFA describes it as “the central fan destination” of the 2026 edition, a free-to-enter space built around live match screenings, music, local food, and entertainment.

It’s aimed at fans who don’t have match tickets and at local communities in each host city. The concept has been part of the World Cup since Germany 2006, and it’s run at every tournament since, South Africa 2010, Brazil 2014, Russia 2018, and Qatar 2022 all had their own versions.

Where are the Fan Festivals in 2026?

There are 14 official FIFA Fan Festival sites across the three host nations. In the USA, festivals are confirmed in Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, and Philadelphia. Canada hosts sites in Toronto and Vancouver, while Mexico’s three festivals are in Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Monterrey.

New York/New Jersey and Los Angeles also have separate host city events running alongside the official programme, giving fans in those areas additional options beyond the festival sites.

Do you need a ticket?

Entry to the Fan Festival is free. No match ticket is required – you turn up, and you’re in. Specific entry requirements and any registration details may vary by city, so it’s worth checking the official FIFA Fan Festival pages at FIFA.com for the most current information before you travel. Details were correct at the time of writing but may be subject to change.

What’s on?

Every match in the tournament is screened live on giant outdoor screens, which means you can follow England’s group stage campaign, the knockout rounds, and the final without stepping foot in a stadium. Alongside the football, each festival features a music and entertainment programme running throughout the tournament, as well as food and drink from the local area.

The atmosphere draws a mix of travelling supporters and local fans, which gives each site its own character. Mexico’s festivals in particular carry a football culture unlike anywhere else in the host nations – the passion in Guadalajara and Mexico City tends to speak for itself.

Why it works

The Fan Festival has earned its place in the World Cup calendar over two decades. It gives fans who can’t afford or access match tickets a genuine way to be part of the tournament – not watching from a pub thousands of miles away, but stood in the host city, surrounded by supporters from around the world, watching the game on a screen the size of a building.

For most fans, that’s more than enough.

But if you actually look at what made each World Cup worth remembering — the football, the upsets, the moments that still get argued about in parking lots — a few editions separate themselves in determining the best World Cup tournament ever​.

Here’s how the top contenders stack up.

Top World Cup teams of all time

Mexico 1970 is where this argument usually starts among the best World Cup games of all time, and not just because people like old Brazil clips. That team had Pele dropping off, Jairzinho scoring in every match, Tostao dragging defenders around, Gerson passing through pressure, and Carlos Alberto charging from right-back like he had been invited late. Six matches, six wins. Italy got the full version in the final, 4-1.

The fourth goal keeps getting replayed because it has a beginning, a middle, and a punchline. Clodoaldo wriggles out of trouble first. Brazil move it across the pitch without rushing. Pele holds the last pass for a beat, just enough, then rolls it right. Carlos Alberto storms into the frame and finishes like a full-back who already knew the script.

Italy were not carved open by one pass. They were moved across the pitch until there was nowhere useful left to stand.

Brazil became the first nation to win three World Cups and took permanent possession of the Jules Rimet Trophy as a result. It also helped that 1970 looked different. This was the first World Cup many viewers saw in color, so Brazil did not arrive as just another great side in old footage.

They came through in yellow shirts, blue shorts, hard Mexican sunlight, and pitches that seemed to glow on television. Plenty of people who were nowhere near alive in 1970 still know the tournament by its colors before they know the details.

Qatar 2022 gets this high among the greatest FIFA World Cup options because of Lusail, really. Argentina had France beaten, or close enough that it felt safe to say so. Then Kylian Mbappe scored twice, Lionel Messi scored again, Mbappe hit back from the spot, and the final ended 3-3 after extra time. A World Cup final hat-trick should have belonged to the winner. Instead, it became part of Messi’s ending. Argentina took the shootout, he lifted the trophy at last, and the tournament closed with 172 goals across 64 games.

Morocco reached the semi final — the first African nation ever to do so. Saudi Arabia beat Argentina in the group stage. Japan beat Germany and Spain. There was almost too much happening, which is its own kind of problem, but the final alone earns Qatar 2022 a permanent spot in this conversation.

Switzerland 1954 is the one people forget, which is a mistake. It still holds the record for goals per game — 140 goals in just 26 matches, an average of 5.38 per game that will never be touched given how the tournament has expanded. Hungary scored 27 goals across five games, including a 9-0 win over South Korea and an 8-3 humiliation of West Germany in the group stage.

Austria beat Switzerland 7-5 in a quarter final. The final itself was West Germany coming back from 2-0 down to beat Hungary 3-2 — the same Hungary that had thrashed them by five goals weeks earlier. Germans call it the Miracle of Bern. It holds up.

Which World Cup had the strongest collection of teams?

Mexico 1970. The group stage alone had Brazil, England, West Germany and Italy — all of them genuine contenders, all of them with players who are still referenced as the best at their positions in history. Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore, Gerd Müller, and Gordon Banks were all in that tournament. Pelé played his last World Cup in it. The talent density hasn’t been matched since.

The best World Cup ever is Mexico 1970, and the football makes the argument for you without needing much help. But the debate is genuinely open at the top — which is exactly why people are already tracking the World Cup 2026 contenders to see which nation might finally give 1970 Brazil something to worry about.

Which World Cup featured the most iconic final?

Argentina vs France in 2022 is the honest answer if you’re talking about pure drama. Kylian Mbappe’s hat trick against the run of play, the comebacks, the penalties — it had everything. For sheer quality of football, Brazil vs Italy in 1970 still wins. Depends on what you’re measuring.

Which World Cup produced the most goals in tournament history?

Qatar 2022, with 172. Switzerland 1954 had fewer total goals (140) but produced them across only 26 games, which is why the goals-per-game record from that tournament has stood for seventy years.

Which World Cup had the most future Ballon d’Or winners?

Mexico 1970 again. Pelé (winner in 1970), Beckenbauer (1972 and 1976), and Müller (1970) were all present. Several players in that tournament went on to define the decade that followed it.

By the time Spain’s shot count crept past twenty-five in Atlanta on Monday, the shape of the evening was clear, and it was not the one anyone had forecast.

Cape Verde, a country of around 600,000 people playing its first World Cup match, was still level at 0-0, and the reason was not a series of last-ditch miracles so much as a defensive structure that refused to break and a 40-year-old goalkeeper, Vozinha, who saved everything that got through it. Spain finished with twenty-seven shots to Cape Verde’s six. The scoreboard read 0-0 but it was a victory in all but name for the perceived minnows.

The result has been received in the obvious tenor; tiny island nation, big spirit, fairytale debut. It is an easy story to write. The trouble is that it patronises the team it means to celebrate. A point against the European champions, taken by sitting deep and staying organised for ninety-plus minutes against one of the best passing sides in the world, is not the work of plucky amateurs riding their luck. It is the work of a side that knew exactly what it was doing. Cape Verde did not stumble into that draw, they built the machinery to take it, frustrating Spain into goalless submission.

Pedro Leitão Brito, known to everyone as Bubista, has coached Cape Verde since 2020 and was named the African confederation’s coach of the year for 2025. His verdict afterwards was not about heart or destiny. “Organisation is fundamental in modern football,” he said, by way of explaining how a side that barely touched the ball had controlled the game. That is the language of a coach who planned to concede possession and did so deliberately, not one who survived a battering and thanked his luck. Spain had all of the ball. Cape Verde had the structure. On the night, the structure held just enough to withstand the onslaught.

Cape Verde is an archipelago off the West African coast, independent from Portugal since 1975, with a resident population that would fit comfortably inside a mid-sized European city. Its footballing population is far larger, spread all over the globe. Generations of emigration have scattered Cape Verdeans across Portugal, the Netherlands, France, New England and West Africa, to the point where the diaspora is usually estimated to outnumber the people living on the islands. The national team is, in the most precise sense, bigger than the nation. The squad that faced Spain was assembled from players based across roughly fourteen countries, the majority of them born outside Cape Verde. The Netherlands supplied the largest contingent; Portugal several more.

What makes Cape Verde different is the scale of the dependence and the deliberateness of the method. This is not a domestic league topped up with a few emigrants. It is, very nearly, a team built from the diaspora outward, by a federation that has gone looking for eligible players wherever they happen to have grown up. The most reliable way to understand how Cape Verde reached a World Cup is not as a miracle of spirit but as a sustained act of recruitment.

Which brings us to Roberto Lopes, and to a LinkedIn message that sat ignored in an inbox for the better part of a year.

Lopes, known as Pico, was born in Crumlin, in Dublin, to a Cape Verdean father and an Irish mother. He came up through Irish youth football and, for a time, was not a full-time footballer at all. He worked as a mortgage adviser at a bank in Blanchardstown while playing part-time for Bohemians, before a move to Shamrock Rovers turned him into a professional and, eventually, one of the most decorated defenders in the League of Ireland.

In 2019, Cape Verde’s then-coach Rui Águas, having worked out that Lopes qualified through his father, contacted him through his LinkedIn profile, in Portuguese. Lopes assumed it was spam and left it. The approach was renewed and a Dublin centre-back began a second career as a Cape Verde international.

On Sunday in Atlanta he started against Spain and, in doing so, became the first active League of Ireland player to appear at a World Cup. It is a story that lends itself to whimsy, and most of the coverage has taken the invitation. But Lopes is far from a footballing footnote or comic relief. He is the method made flesh. A federation that recruits by direct message, that treats a part-time professional in Ireland as a genuine international prospect because of who his father is, is a federation running a strategy, rather than waiting around for success to magically appear.

None of this is entirely comfortable, and the piece would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. A national team built largely from players raised elsewhere, some of them recruited as adults once their eligibility was established, raises a fair question about what national representation is supposed to mean. If a country can assemble a competitive side mostly from its diaspora, sometimes from players who considered other international futures first, is that a nation expressing itself through football, or a clever reading of FIFA’s eligibility rules? The question is worth sitting with rather than waving away. The honest answer is that it is some of both. Lopes, by every account, has thrown himself into the Cape Verdean project with a commitment that looks nothing like opportunism, and the same is true of most of the squad. But the tactic is becoming widespread and is not unique to Cape Verde; they have simply taken a now-common approach to its logical conclusion, because their circumstances left them with little else.

So the fairytale framing is not wrong, exactly. The joy is genuine, the achievement is large, and there is real romance in a country this small holding a giant at arm’s length. To deny that would be its own kind of condescension. The argument here is only that the romance is the less interesting half of the story. The more interesting half is that Cape Verde has shown what a small, stable, well-run football nation can do when it stops apologising for its size and starts organising around it: hire the right coach, identify the diaspora, build a structure, and pick the moments to defend.

Uruguay come next and with all four teams in Group H level on a single point, that match will go a long way to deciding whether this campaign becomes more than one good night in Atlanta. Cape Verde may well lose it; they remain, by squad value and pedigree, the weakest side in their group, and a single clean sheet against Spain does not change that. But the result that matters beyond this tournament has already been recorded. A nation of half a million, represented by a team drawn from a dozen other countries and marshalled by a man who was selling mortgages in Blanchardstown a decade ago, did not survive Spain by accident. They had a plan for exactly that evening, and the rest of the small football world has been handed a copy of it.

In the 28th minute against Scotland in Boston last Saturday, a John McGinn shot clipped a defender and changed direction enough to beat Johny Placide, and that settled it. Haiti pushed for the rest of the afternoon and came away with nothing: a 1-0 defeat in their first World Cup match in fifty-two years. Scotland had not won a match at this tournament since 1990. Haiti had not played one since 1974. Only one of those waits ended in Boston, and it was not Haiti’s.

The story that has grown up around this team is a warm one. A tiny, broken country qualifies against the odds; football arrives as relief; a nation that has had little to celebrate gets something. Most of that is true, and none of it should be sneered at. But it is a partial description, and the part it leaves out is the more revealing one. Haiti have reached a World Cup they qualified for without playing a single competitive match on Haitian soil, with a squad assembled almost entirely from players who grew up somewhere else. They are, in the most literal sense, a home team without a home.

Stade Sylvio Cator, the national stadium in Port-au-Prince, has been closed since early 2024, sitting in a part of the capital that armed groups control. Through a qualifying campaign that ended a half-century exile, Haiti played their “home” fixtures abroad. The coach who took them there, the Frenchman Sébastien Migné, was appointed in 2024 and, by his own account in the build-up, had never set foot in the country he was about to lead to a World Cup. None of this is presented here as scandal. It is the practical arrangement of a federation operating around a state that can no longer guarantee a football match.

Migné’s selection have had to lean heavily on the diaspora: players formed in France, in North America, in clubs across Europe. The forward Wilson Isidor, of Sunderland, and the midfielder Jean-Ricner Bellegarde both came to Haiti having been eligible for France. This is worth handling carefully, because diaspora selection is now ordinary at the top of international football. France, Morocco and Senegal all draw on populations spread across continents, and nobody treats their squads as evidence of national collapse. Haiti is different not because its players were raised abroad but because there is no functioning home base for them to be raised in, nor to return to. The diaspora is not supplementing the domestic game. For the most part it has replaced it.

The temptation, with a team like this, is to reach back to 1974 for a golden age. It is worth resisting, because 1974 was not one. Haiti’s only previous World Cup did produce a moment that has lasted: Emmanuel Sanon running onto a pass and finishing past Dino Zoff, ending a run of 1,142 minutes in which the Italy goalkeeper had not conceded. Italy recovered to win 3-1, and Haiti lost all three games, but Sanon scored twice across the tournament and the goal against Zoff has kept its place in the highlight reels. That is the part everyone remembers.

The part that tends to fall out of the retelling is what happened to Ernst Jean-Joseph. The Haiti defender failed a doping test at that tournament, the first player ever to do so at a World Cup; he said the substance came from medication, an account his team’s own doctor disputed. What followed is grim, and the sources are not identical on every detail. ESPN’s history of the tournament records, plainly, that he was taken back to the team hotel and beaten up by his own squad’s officials. Other accounts, drawn from reporting since, describe members of the Duvalier dictatorship’s security apparatus removing him and putting him on a flight back to Haiti. The regime by then was that of Jean-Claude Duvalier, who had inherited his father’s machinery of fear. The squad, by several accounts, played out the rest of the tournament shaken. Whatever the precise sequence, the through-line is not nostalgia. In 1974 the Haitian state treated its footballers as property. The difference in 2026 is that the state is barely there at all.

Because the country behind this team is in a worse condition now than the headlines about gangs usually convey. The Kenyan-led international security mission that was meant to push back armed groups left Haiti at the end of April, widely judged to have failed, and is being replaced by a UN-authorised force that is not expected to reach anything like full strength until later this year. The first contingents have begun to arrive. In the meantime the violence has displaced well over a million people inside their own country. This is the backdrop against which eleven Haitian players walked out in Boston, and it is why almost none of them could have done the equivalent at home.

So the hopeful reading needs its hearing, because it is not wrong. Qualification has meant something. The reporting from Haiti and from its diaspora communities describes the team as a rare point of shared pride in a place with little to share, and there is no reason to doubt it. People are entitled to their joy, and the players are entitled not to be flattened into a metaphor for their country’s suffering. They are footballers who were good enough to reach a World Cup, and against Scotland they were the more adventurous side for long stretches before McGinn’s deflection. Reducing them to a symbol does them a quiet disservice.

But symbols are what tournaments manufacture, and the symbol being built around Haiti is a comforting one that does not quite fit the facts. The comforting version says a nation has come back. The more accurate version is that a nation has scattered, and that the World Cup is one of the few places its scattered parts can still gather under one shirt. The achievement and the absence are the same event. Haiti are here because Haitians are everywhere, and Haitians are everywhere because Haiti, as a place to live and play and host a football match, has been hollowed out.

Brazil are next, and then Morocco, and the likeliest outcome is that Haiti go home early, in the sporting sense, having given a decent account of themselves. The question this team raises is not whether it can recapture a 1974 that was never as golden as the clips suggest. It is whether, by the time another Haitian side qualifies, there will be an ordinary Haiti for it to come from: a stadium that opens, a league that functions, a capital its own players can enter. On current evidence that is a long way off, and a good run in this tournament, however welcome, will not bring it any closer. For now the team is the country’s best advertisement and its starkest accounting at once, and the people cheering loudest understand both halves of that better than anyone watching from a distance.