Key events
Justin Kavanagh gets in touch? “Can it be a coincidence that Scott McTominay goes down with a stomach problem around the times when TV’s most bellyaching, bombastic, and English-accented chef shows up in the Scots’ camp?”
Myke Bartlett writes: “I was once like you. How I mocked grown men – and occasionally women – on TV panel shows, discussing football like it mattered. Talking about sport with the same intensity philosophers might debate existence (or Star Wars fans the latest film).
“Having unexpectedly sporty children has changed me. I understand now the appeal and importance of sport is that it doesn’t matter. Sport is something into which we can invest our most intense passion and emotion, in 90-minute instalments, without it having any real effect on our broader lives.”
Cristiano Ronaldo speaks from the Portugal camp: “We’re approaching this competition with a lot of hope. The preparation has been very good, tiring, because we have worked hard,
“I am very positive, I believe things will go well and that we will put in a good performance. It’s a very good generation… which will bring a lot of joy to the Portuguese people,” the forward said of the squad around him.
“The most important thing is to start well, with the first match, then follow up with the second and third… finish top of the group and from there, take it one match at a time.”
This will be the sixth World Cup, and his first, back in 2006, was the best, when his team lost in the semi-finals.
Paraguay are up later, and may be a difficult proposition for the daddy hosts.
None of the teams in Group D can afford to underestimate La Albirroja. They have recovered, consolidated and added countless strengths. “I would love people to see Paraguay again as the team no one wants to face,” Alfaro said upon his arrival in August 2024. Although his appointment initially raised doubts, his words have proved prophetic.
Under Alfaro, Paraguay lost just one away match in the qualifiers – to Brazil – and, alongside Ecuador and Argentina, finished as one of the strongest teams in the competition under the man they call “the hunter of utopias”.
McTominay fitness boost for Scotland
Good news for Scotland: Scott McTominay trained with the Scotland squad in Foxborough ahead of the World Cup opener against Haiti on Saturday
The Napoli midfielder missed Thursday’s training session at the Scots’ training base in Charlotte, North Carolina due to an upset stomach. Steve Clarke and his squad flew to Boston after training, and it was reported the 29-year-old made his own onward journey with a doctor as a precautionary measure.
Good afternoon, the hype is gathering for the entry of the remaining host nations.
And, with that, I’ll hand you over to John Brewin…
USA v Paraguay is the early hours offering. Here’s an official Opta fact although Bert’s hat-trick is shrouded in controversy.
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This will be the second World Cup meeting between the United States and Paraguay. Their only previous encounter came in 1930, when USA won 3-0 – a match that featured the first hat-trick in World Cup history, scored by Bert Patenaude. It is also the USA’s joint-largest win at the competition.
And here’s, erm, a boost for the Scotland camp. Gordon Ramsay has turned up.
But is it as inspiring as this? Rod Stewart with a horse.
Wow. Great recall here from Roger Kirkby on email. I can now place myself accurately – in the Original Oak in Headingley. The OJ chase was the clincher.
“Hi David, last time the WC was played in USA, the opening day, June 17th, was a day like no other. Two World Cup games involving West Germany in one and Spain in the other. Arnold Palmer played his last round ever in the US Open. The Knicks were playing in game five of the NBA finals and pandemonium broke out because of the OJ car chase. Pretty unforgettable.”
We’re on our way. We are Ron’s 22 Thomas’s 26. Instead of swaying along awkwardly in jumpers on Top Of The Pops, the boys for this World Cup are suited and booted while sitting on bespoke furniture/empty M&S fruit boxes. Don’t they look smart.
The World Cup’s oldest player: Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa didn’t come off the bench against South Africa so the first 40-year-old we’ll see in action at this World Cup will be Bosnia & Herzegovina’s Edin Dzeko. The former Manchester City star was their top scorer in qualifying, with six goals in nine matches. He played in all three of their games at their only previous World Cup in 2014, scoring in the 3-1 win over Iran.
Thanks Martin. I’ve just been looking at various World Cup wallcharts and fixture lists. If you want to watch every minute of England and Scotland, these are the timings you need to plan for.
SCOTLAND
Sunday, 14 June 02:00: v Haiti
Friday, 19 June 23:00: v Morocco
Wednesday, 24 June 23:00: v Brazil
ENGLAND
Wednesday, 17 June 21:00: v Croatia
Tuesday, 23 June 21:00: v Ghana
Saturday, 27 June 22:00: v Panama
A tougher gig for Scotland fans. That Haiti one will test a few but note that Brazil v Morocco is 11pm on the Saturday night so that can get you in the mood.
That is it from me today, I will be back with you on Monday. And now over to David Tindall …
Pro-tip in this article: Telemundo, the World Cup’s Spanish-language broadcaster in the US, did not cut away to full-screen advertising during the hydration breaks.
Another pro-tip: apparently this page – bbc.co.uk/nospoilers – will get you to the football streams in the UK after the fact without, well, spoilers. It isn’t perfect, thumbnails of players celebrating goals are still there, but it isn’t directly declaring the result at least.
An interesting perspective I note from partenopei in the comments: “I approach this group phase as a final round of World Cup qualifiers. With the actual tournament only beginning next month.”
I can’t say I entirely agree, but I do think, as with the last men’s Euros, that third-placed teams having a shot at qualifying really changes the dynamic of the group stage. For the larger nations, who tend to take it for granted they should progress, the three group matches seem to be a bit more about playing yourself into form and tactical practice rather than having a genuine air of jeopardy about them.
Here are those quotes, via AP, that I promised you earlier from the Bosnia and Herzegovina camp, before I got distracted by Dubioza Kolektiv.
“Even if we are underrated or underdogs, we did something that everyone knows who we are,” forward Ermedin Demirović said. “It’s not a problem to be the underdog, to be honest.”
“We are a small country, this is our second ever World Cup and for sure we are sort of an underdog in many of the matches ahead,” coach Sergej Barbarez said. “But if you look at the previous 20 or so games there were only two teams that were ranked lower than us, and if you know our results, I think that you have to just admire what we’ve managed to achieve.”
If you recall, Bosnia condemned Italy to watch a World Cup from the sidelines yet again after a penalty shoot-out play-off win in March. They the lowest-ranked team in Group B behind Switzerland (19), Canada (30) and Qatar (56).
At home in Sarajevo it seems like the kids are already getting World Cup fever – I hope they will be allowed to stay up to watch. The match kicks off at 9pm local time in the Balkan nation.
Ahead of the USA opening their campaign against Paraguay later today, there will be an opening ceremony featuring Katy Perry and other music stars, and US secretary of state Marco Rubio is expected to attend the match. Speaking yesterday this is what boss Mauricio Pochettino had to say:
For me, successful is to win. Is to win tomorrow. And win after. If we don’t arrive to the final and we don’t win the World Cup, to talk about ’successful’? I don’t know.
Christian Pulisic, one of the US men’s national team who have been increasingly verbose in their religious devotion as this fascinating article by Leander Schaerlaeckens explored, has also been on media duty. He insisted the US is “able to compete with anyone”. He said:
We want to be a real force in this tournament. We’ve got three really good games to show everyone what we’re all about. We know we have to be ready to battle. It’s not about just playing beautiful football.
Graham Ruthven has our daily handy guide to which fixtures are on, what to watch for, and where you can watch them. I’m actually going to see Sparks tonight at the Royal Chelsea Hospital, so I suspect my plans involve avoiding the score and perusing Canada v Bosnia and Herzegovina on catch-up, leading straight into USA v Paraguay.
I’ve just seen a headline on the newswires “AI replaces Paul the Octopus for 2026 World Cup tips” which has almost made me lose the will to live. To cheer you up, instead of that, here is a gorilla at Guadalajara Zoo who is supporting Uruguay for some reason.
And in actual football news, Brighton have made a £30million bid to sign Croatian defender Luka Vušković from EFL Championship side fellow Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur, the Press Association understands.
Dear lord, a piece previewing the Canada v Bosnia match-up from a Bosnian perspective has just dropped on AP – I’ll get to the serious football bit shortly – but it has alerted me to the fact that there is a viral Bosnian song for the World Cup which is now absolutely lodged in my mind as an earworm. Turn your volume up and annoy somebody on a bus near you by blasting this out: Dubioza Kolektiv with I Am from Bosnia – Take Me to America
Sample lyrics:
I am from Bosnia
Take me to America
I want to see
Statue of Liberty
I can no longer wait
Take me to United States
Takе me to Golden Gate
I will assimilatе
A few years back Dave Simpson for the Guardian described the band as “a surreal Bosnian version of Madness”, and I can very much see why.
In non-World Cup news, Tom Garry reports England forward Beth Mead has joined Manchester City on a deal until summer 2029, and there is a picture to prove it.
Canada are up this evening to join the party as co-hosts. It is their third appearance in a World Cup finals, and they are yet to win a match. In Qatar last time out they came a cropper in a group which featured Morocco, Croatia and Belgium.
Qatar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Switzerland seems like a much kinder draw this time, with the Balkan nation up first. Jesse Marsch, once of Leeds United, is leading their campaign. Ben Fisher in Toronto reports on their preparations.
I must just add my condolences to the family and friends of Kenny Jackett, who has died aged 64. He didn’t enjoy a particularly successful spell in the dugout at Brisbane Road, but that was where I watched him managing Leyton Orient. Justin Kavanagh gets in touch via email to point out to me that while many Wolves fans will be sad about his loss today, the World Cup has already given them a lot to shout about:
The human story of the day was about Raul Jiménez finally scoring on the biggest stage (and with his head!). Then Wolves veteran defender Ladislav Krejčí popped up for a very English goal for the Czechs. They may have been relegated this year, but Wolves are making waves in Mexico.
Martin Belam
Good afternoon/morning/evening*. As someone who can pretty much count on one hand the number of televised group stage World Cup matches I’ve missed since 1982, I am trying to manage my expectation of how many matches I can actually catch this time round and still retain my job. One I will definitely be making time for is France v Senegal on Tuesday. Ahead of that there has been some criticism of Kylian Mbappé and his decision to speak out about the rise of far-right politics in France. French football writer Raphaël Jucobin looks at the fall-out for us.
[*Delete as applicable]
What a whirlwind hour that was, Martin Belam is here for the next stint. Bye for now.
ITV’s coverage of the World Cup’s opening game between Mexico and South Africa received their highest viewing figures of the year, peaking at 7.7million.
It does go to show that having football on free-to-air television is a very good thing. Maybe some governing bodies can learn from that. The biggest games in the Premier League do not get close to half that.
I think it is worth throwing some light on players to keep an eye on at the tournament. Ismaël Koné could be an interesting player for Canada in midfield and aged 23 has the potential to kick on.
Joe Callaghan
What the football public here crave now and over the next five and a half weeks is something permanent. A legacy which can last. Marsch and his players do, too, desperately so. The most gifted squad Canada have assembled sometimes talk about having already turned their homeland into a football country. At others they reference it as an ambition. The truth is somewhere in the middle – a work in progress, one which maybe feels closer to its start than finish. Which makes their World Cup opener on Friday afternoon, and all that follows, so precious.
“The ITV studio is up there with the BBC one in 2024 overlooking the Brandenburg Gate,” writes Andrew Goudie.
Australia coach Tony Popovic has signed a contract extension through early 2027 on the eve of his team’s World Cup opening match against Turkey on Saturday.
Football Australia said Friday that the 52-year-old Popovic’s deal now extends through the Asian Cup, which will take place in January and early February in Saudi Arabia.
The former Australia international was hired in September 2024 and led the Socceroos to qualification for the 48-team tournament.
“I’m proud to lead my country into a World Cup, but most importantly, I want to ensure that our team is fully prepared and focused on our group matches against Turkey, the United States, and Paraguay,” he said of Australia’s opponents in Group D. AP
