Soccer

PEP BALL:

Geometry, football and the World Cup final (Conor Boland, July 17, 2026, The Conversation)

Put three attackers in a straight line and one defender can often block both supporting players. But move one supporting player sideways and the passing lines separate.

The defender must choose which route to close. Press the ball and a pass can go around them. Protect the inside route and the outside may open. If another defender steps across, a Spanish player can attack the space left behind.

A useful football triangle does not need equal sides or 60-degree angles. Its best shape changes with defenders’ positions, body orientation, ball speed and the space available.

A narrow triangle is easy to squeeze because one defender may block both lanes. A wide one makes the pass travel farther, giving an opponent more time to intercept it.

In their semi-final match against France, Spain found the middle ground again and again – close enough for quick combinations, but far enough apart to stretch France’s press.

SPURSY VERSES:

The People’s Game: The education of a soccer fan. (Salman Rushdie, May 24, 1999, The New Yorker)

I came to London in January, 1961, as a boy of thirteen and a half, on my way to boarding school, and accompanied by my father. It was a cold month, with blue skies by day and green fogs by night. We stayed at a huge barracks of a hotel, the Cumberland, at Marble Arch, and after we settled in my father asked if I would like to see a professional soccer game. (In Bombay, where I had grown up, there was no soccer to speak of; the local sports were cricket and field hockey.)

The first game my father took me to see was what I would later learn is called a “friendly” (because the result doesn’t count toward anything) between a North London team called the Arsenal and the champions of Spain, Real Madrid. I did not know that the visitors were rated as perhaps the greatest team ever. Or that they had just won the European Cup five years running. (The European Cup is an annual tournament held to determine the champion of all Europe’s national champions.) Or that among their players were two of the game’s all-time immortals, both foreigners: a Hungarian named Ferenc Puskas, “the little general,” and an Argentine, Alfredo di Stefano.

This is the way I remember the game: in the first half, Real Madrid tore the Arsenal apart. The London team was renowned for its tough defensive style of play—“Boring Arsenal” is a label it was stuck with for years—but Real Madrid went through the Arsenal’s defense almost at will, and at halftime led 3–0. Then, because this was, after all, just a friendly game, Real took off its star players and replaced them with a bunch of kids. Arsenal stubbornly kept all its first-team players on the field, and the game ended up tied, 3–3; but not even the most diehard Arsenal fans could pretend that the result accurately reflected the quality of the two teams.

On the way back to the hotel, my father asked me for my views. “Well, I didn’t think much of that English team,” I told him. “But I liked that Spanish side. Can you find out if there’s an English team that plays like Real Madrid?” Unknown to me, I had asked for the near impossible; as if, in Michael Jordan’s airborne heyday, I had asked, “Can you find out if there’s a team that plays like the Chicago Bulls?” My father, almost as much an innocent in these matters as myself, said, “I’ll ask at the front desk.” What he learned from that long-forgotten hotel clerk changed my life, because a few days later we went to watch the other famous team of North London, Tottenham Hotspur, and I lost my heart.

THE GOAT:

Shep Messing and the 1972 Olympic soccer adventure that turned into tragedy (Michael Lewis, 6 Oct 2015, The Guardian)

A non-conformist who spoke his mind, Messing walked to the beat of his own drum, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.

“I had no money, so I hitch-hiked from New York to St Louis,” he said. “I was not told anything by the coaches. I had scrounged up the money for a flight to get back, but I had not money for a hotel room. I was literally sleeping at the airport at the gate. I woke up and picked up a Sunday newspaper and saw that I had made the team.

“From zero to a hundred and then it’s off to qualifying. Concacaf was not really not that much different then, in terms of how difficult it is to play in Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador. Those way games were probably just as difficult as they are today. That qualifying process was long and tough. We had no expectations.”

There was no grand master plan in US soccer back then.

“It is so hard to compare eras and generations for US soccer,” Messing said. “You’re not talking about guys who were playing in a stable, professional league. This was really amateurs. So to go to play at Azteca against Mexico and to Jamaica and Trinidad and the Central American countries, we did not have that body of experience. Our experience was, in my case, Harvard-Yale or Harvard against Columbia. We had no preparation, nothing to prepare. It was brutal. But we didn’t have any pressure. We were a bunch of college bandits.”

ONLY DONALD…:

The World Cup Is Undressing the Myth of Trump’s American Homogeneity (Andrew Lawrence, 7/02/26, The Guardian)

The same countries that see immigration as an existential threat are bearing witness to a World Cup that makes the opposite plain – underscoring not only the short-sightedness of exclusionary political movements, but the dereliction of leadership within Fifa itself. If the governing body wasn’t so busy kowtowing to authoritarian regimes and fleecing workaday fans, it could be the greatest force for global good since, well, the advent of international flight.

This tournament has proven that soccer, when politics and cultural posturing are set aside, can indeed be the great unifier – turning Japanese fans on to the wonders of chips and salsa, sparking a bromance between the people of Scotland and the city of Boston, and keeping Brazil’s supporter mob in a mood to party with New York Knicks fans. It’s kept the nation’s big box stores and fast food joints humming. At an Oakland watch party for Cape Verde, Jill Tucker – who taught English in the country as a Peace Corps volunteer – was stunned to find one of her old students among the cheering section. Together, the connections are a stark reminder that sharing a flag doesn’t mean sharing a worldview, least of all one imposed from on high.

Therein lies the frustration for this administration: even as it seeks to rewrite the rules on who can and can’t be an American, diversity remains inseparable from national identity. In a country that owes so much of its cultural and economic strength to diversity, equity and inclusion – from Einstein to Oprah – soccer is no different. European and Latin-American newcomers established the game in industrial hubs and mill towns in the US midwest and southeast. Sustained immigration over the better part of a century turned soccer into a national pastime – one with staggering participation, impressive TV ratings and seemingly limitless potential for growth. The fact that US viewership for this year’s World Cup is as robust on Telemundo as it is on Fox speaks to the millions of American soccer fans who have long been comfortable following the game in Spanish.

…could make a World Cup more unifying than the 4th.

A NATION TURNS ITS LONELY EYES TO JURGEN:

Germany out of 2026 World Cup: What went wrong? (Jonathan Harding, 6/30/26, Deitsche-Welle)

Firstly, key players did not deliver on the field. Captain Joshua Kimmich underwhelmed. Florian Wirtz appeared to carry his poor club form into the World Cup. Jamal Musiala looked like a player desperately trying to get back into form after a long injury lay off. It was far too disappointing from far too many players who needed to deliver to keep the group together.

Collectively, Germany were shaky in defense and lacked penetration and decisiveness in attack. They did not go a game at this tournament without conceding, and other than against Curacao, failed to transfer promising passages into powerful performances.

Injuries certainly didn’t help. Losing Serge Gnabry before the tournament was a blow. To then see Lennart Karl suffer a major injury in Chicago just days before the tournament start really stopped Germany in their tracks, as the Bayern teenager looked set to shine down the right-hand side. Nico Schlotterbeck being ruled out for months during the first half of the Ivory Coast game was perhaps the biggest loss of all, though. The Borussia Dortmund defender was an integral part of Germany’s play, particularly in the build-up which Nagelsmann said was “too slow” against Paraguay.

Then there’s Julian Nagelsmann. His decision to recall 40-year-old Manuel Neuer did not prove, despite a save in the shootout against Paraguay, to be the factor he made it out to be. His substitutions suggested a coach still searching for his best 11. Against Ecuador, with the group already won, his changes left Germany disjointed and wiped away any hope of maintaining their momentum into the knockouts. Even though this Germany team were not contenders, it would also be fair to say that Nagelsmann appeared to struggle to get the best out of this group.

IRISH NEED NOT APPLY:

Tartan Army winning hearts and influencing people across Boston: No Scotland, no party: skirling bagpipes and swirling kilts — and a formidable performance in the bars — are charming New Englanders (David Leask, June 17 2026, Times uk)

Boston bars have been allowed to stay open extra late under special licensing rules — hailed as the “Tartan Army Bill” — and have enjoyed roaring trade. One Irish pub said takings were triple that of St Patrick’s Day. Sam Adams Boston Taproom ran out of beer. Manager Billy DeCain told NBC Boston: “We’ve never seen anything like it.”

But it was one waitress who spelled out how much the business meant. Identifying herself as Kale, she took to TikTok to say she had earned nearly $1,000 in a single shift in which she was “absolutely whacked”. She was instantly converted by the Tartan Army. “I am rooting for them,” she said. “Let’s go Scotland.”

IT’S A UNIPOLAR WORLD:

World Cup fans from around the globe share 1st US food experiences on social media (Kelly McCarthy, June 17, 2026, Good Morning America)

The diplomatic power of American food has become a breakout star of World Cup content on social media.

From massive trays of traditional Texas barbecue to late night orders at Waffle House, thousands of tourists who have flocked to the U.S. for the first time to attend 2026 FIFA World Cup matches are obsessing over their first taste of American food and dining culture.

World Cup visitors react to beloved American foods
Before international tourists even stepped foot in stadiums hosting the various World Cup matches this month, they had begun filling social media feeds with videos of themselves trying new favorite bites from fast food chains, discovering free refills on drinks, and deli sandwiches at regional grocery stores.

We are unimaginably affluent.

WHEN LAWRENCE, KS BECAME AN ALGERIAN SUBURB:

Scottish Fans Remind America How to Celebrate (Henry Zavalick, June 17, 2026, American Spectator)

Boston has once more been occupied by the United Kingdom, albeit rather happily this time. For the last week, tens of thousands of “Tartan Army” soldiers have descended on the city with World Cup zeal, good cheer, and an unparalleled thirst for beer. The occasion, of course, is Scotland’s first appearance in the World Cup since 1998, accompanied by its first World Cup victory since 1990 after June 13’s 1-0 win over Haiti.

Scotland’s first World Cup win in 36 years led to an impromptu victory lap of the city, bagpipes and all, and historic sales for restaurants and pubs. A full parade of raucous, singing Scots with bagpipes and kilts marched to Fenway Park on Sunday, where they threw in support for the Red Sox against the Texas Rangers. The Scottish fans have brought an animated energy to the city of Boston, and its residents have embraced it for the singular event that it is.

Sad that it has taken all these visitors to remind us how great daily life in America is.

IT’S STAYING HOME:

A near-perfect World Cup opener takes the USMNT into uncharted territory (Henry Bushnell, June 13, 2026, The Athletic)

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.

“I mean, my whole life I feel like I’ve envisioned it,” U.S. defender Chris Richards said. “But tonight was way better than what I could’ve envisioned. It was surreal.”

In front of 70,492 fans at SoFi Stadium near Los Angeles, it was more than a near-perfect start to this home World Cup.

It was, as Sebastian Berhalter said while recalling the victory lap to thank the fans, “what U.S. soccer should be.”