The World Cup is like an eclipse that strikes the whole planet.
Despite the drumbeat of catastrophizing in the run-up to the 2026 World Cup, the tournament has, so far, been a life-affirming marvel of collective effervescence.
The vibe shift arrived the moment Argentine forward Lionel Messi took the field, and when the United States quickly joined the teams catalyzing one TikTok-worthy highlight after another. The emotional has replaced the rational, and mesmerizing soccer has obliterated fear.
This is the world’s greatest party. An excuse to cut work and day-drink as the entire planet has joyously invaded North America, reveling in our nation one Waffle House waffle, Buc-ee’s Beaver Nugget and Popeyes Big Box at a time. The giddy rapture of the Scottish, Norwegian and Ghanaian fans has been so intoxicating, it is impossible to prevent yourself from wanting to be part of it.
Even if you do not know your low block from your high press, this is your guide to faking it. It’s not too late: Come join the millions of Americans falling in love with soccer, and making this game — which has been predicted to be America’s sport of the future since 1972 — the sport of the now.
What to wear
The World Cup is not the time to be subtle. If you want to dress like your favorite Epcot pavilion, THIS IS YOUR TIME. When you go to an indie concert, you never want to wear the T-shirt of the band you’re seeing. This tournament is the opposite of that. Wear the colors of the nation you support in shameless fashion. Be full-on Timothée-Chalamet-courtside-at-a-Knicks-game brazen. The only other option is to dress like a large swath of traveling England fans and go shirt-off. If that is the case, be different from all those England fans and make sure you are wearing S.P.F. 60 sunscreen.
Whom to root for
The United States, naturally, if you’re reading this in the United States. Our boys have thus far played swaggy, buccaneering soccer and coaxed from audiences the greatest of fan emotions: delusional hope. But the true joy of the World Cup is the chance for fans around the world to reconnect to their roots.
So far, I have flown on a plane packed with Congolese Americans uniting in Atlanta after their tenacious team’s journey, stood with 5,000 Korean Americans watching their team labor on ginormous screens in Los Angeles’s K-Town and marveled after encountering what felt like half of St. Louis emptying out to follow Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sparkling odyssey. An estimated 55,000 Ecuador fans made MetLife Stadium quake as their team stunned Germany to reach the knockout rounds. Haiti, Curaçao, Egypt, Japan and Morocco brought enormous ingatherings of their American fan bases. The boundaries of identity have been so porous and welcoming that watching Scotland’s Tartan Army charm our nation while drinking Boston and Miami dry has made millions more feel the twinge of some distant phantom Caledonian lineage.
What to talk about
The opening round of the tournament was akin to the greatest telenovela acted out live, without a script. Sport fans’ group chats have become populated with ardent opinions about the relationship of America’s hopes to Christian Pulisic’s injured calf muscle or about whether Portuguese legend Cristiano Ronaldo is really washed up.
The game’s biggest names have all shown up. The ecstatic flash that is Kylian Mbappé has propelled France to the status of favorites. The giant Norwegian Erling Haaland has taken all comers like a Scandinavian Shaquille O’Neal. Above all, 39-year-old Lionel Messi has soared. In his sixth World Cup, he is now also the first man to score in seven straight World Cup games. To watch him is to glimpse a maestro perform in real time. His goals will be talked about for centuries to come, like Mozart’s concertos or Michelangelo’s sculptures.
The smaller teams have roared. Cape Verde, population of around 525,000, an archipelagic nation consisting of 10 volcanic islands scattered across the central Atlantic Ocean, has charmed, becoming the smallest nation ever to reach the knockout rounds. The 40-year-old goalkeeper, known chummily as Vozinha (full name: Josimar José Évora Dias), saved seven shots to hold tournament favorite Spain to a goal-less tie. He now has over 17 million Instagram followers, more than Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Brunson and Victor Wembanyama combined.
If you’re in proximity to English soccer fans, you might wonder (aloud): Will England end 60 years of hurt? The English always make themselves believe this will be their year. Yet they have won only once, on home turf, back in 1966, a date etched in every English schoolkid’s education like 1066. The tournament most often ends in heart-wrenching shame and self-sabotage, in the style of Charlie Brown attempting to kick a football that Lucy snatches away. This squad, propelled by the world-class striker Harry Kane, a man who looks as if he could have been ripped from the cockpit of a Spitfire during the Battle of Britain, and his Scottie Pippen, Jude Bellingham, has toiled to make its nation work itself into a state of belief once again.
If it’s political discourse you seek, try a different conversational prompt: The World Cup is a mirror to our world in chaos. It was an agony to witness Iran’s run. Here was a team whose government was in active military conflict with one of the host countries. As geopolitical brinkmanship played out on the other side of the world, the Iranians were forced to move their base camp from Tucson, Ariz., to Tijuana, Mexico. Their games, two of which were played in Los Angeles, home to one of the largest diasporic Iranian communities, became political theater as the Department of Homeland Security forced the team to leave within hours of the final whistles. Despite the hubbub, the team went undefeated and was within reach of qualifying for the knockout rounds until a series of unfortunate events took them out. First there was the offside call against a late Iranian goal in the game against Egypt, which ended in a dramatic draw. And then, heartbreakingly, Austria scored in Minute 5 of stoppage time in its final first-round game against Algeria, eliminating Iran’s hopes of squeaking by on point accumulation alone. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced he “danced a happy dance” when they were eliminated. This is soccer for Jake Tapper viewers, not World Cup fans.
How to connect with hardcore fans
Express your disdain over how the free-flowing tradition of soccer as a game of two halves has been sullied by snapping it into an American-style “four quarters” replete with the grating intrusion of commercial breaks. Pause dramatically, then add, “Hydration breaks have done something I previously thought was impossible — unite the world in anger.” Thus revealing your ardent, long-held belief that the invention of a midhalf hydration break has pockmarked this tournament.
Failing that, muse that the evident friction between the Fox Sports studio hosts Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alexi Lalas is just the first act of a “When Harry Met Sally”-style rom-com.
What never to say
“Nothing can go wrong now” — never let these words escape your lips. Don’t tempt fate and call a game over. On Sunday, Canada made history by reaching the round of 16 for the first time, shocking South Africa with an exclamation-point 92nd-minute strike from Stephen Eustáquio, who instantly wove himself into his nation’s history alongside true greats like Alanis Morissette, Margaret Atwood and the Barenaked Ladies. Japan’s dream of a first-ever knockout-stage win was dashed by Brazil roaring back from a goal down, stealing victory in the 96th minute.
Even the United States has not been immune. Our boys won back-to-back World Cup games for the first time in 96 years. We were on our way to being undefeated until the 98th minute of the game against Turkey, when Arda Guler nutmegged our hero Pulisic, a soccer humiliation akin to whipping off his shorts in public, helping his countryman Kaan Ayhan to net the winner with the last kick of the ball. This is soccer. A game in which within the blink of an eye both teams can soar and then feel their wax wings melting.
Where to watch
This may be your most important decision in your efforts to World Cup-as-a-verb. Of course, to go to the games in stadiums is good, but to truly make memories, you must revel in the authentic ethnic culinary experiences that are on offer in every city. Find the Ghanaian stew joint in Queens when the Black Stars play. A churrascaria in Little Brazil when the vaunted Seleção take the field. Pro tip: Choose a dish that you can eat with your hands. The World Cup is time for neither cutlery nor manners. My advice would be to choose the greatest soccer bar in your city. These pioneer outposts have expanded the game over the past three decades. They also have the ability to buckle time and space and transport you to London, Paris, Rio or Barcelona, depending on who is playing, for 90 minutes at a time.
Congratulations — you’re World Cupping! And you couldn’t have picked a better year.
Because this tournament is being played in large part across the United States, with short forays into Canada and Mexico, we are experiencing the twin wonders of the United States of America discovering the soccer world and of world soccer discovering America, in a healing spirit of wide-open curiosity and mutual respect. That meant seeing an estimated 22,000 Dutch fans, clad in orange, bouncing left to right through downtown Kansas City, Mo., behind a large techno-blaring bus. Or maybe you caught the thousands of Norwegians who flooded Times Square in New York City to perform a synchronized “Viking row” as if in a pillaging long ship of yore.
These are crazy moments in which global soccer and American culture are fusing on a daily basis. Where Haaland used a day off to destroy a pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli, and Lamine Yamal, the 18-year-old Spanish prodigy, delighted in pushing a shopping cart at a Walmart in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.
Perhaps my favorite World Cup story occurred in Lawrence, Kan., where the Algerian team set up camp at a local DoubleTree hotel. The town’s citizens quickly fell truly, madly, deeply for North African soccer and culture. When the Fennec Foxes clinched their place in the knockout rounds last weekend, the Lawrencians stood side by side with Algerian fans to welcome the team back in the early hours of the morning. Together they illuminated the Kansas night sky with a spectacular display of firework-fueled passion worthy of Algiers. This was the stuff of World Cup lore, the creation of stories that will be told and retold for generations to come, destined to become only bigger and more wild-eyed with each retelling.
Roger Bennett is the founder of the Men in Blazers Media Network and the author of “We Are the World (Cup).”
Illustrations by Peter Arkle.
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