The 2026 World Cup of Soccer is different. Maybe it's the very convenient match times. Maybe it's the ticket prices. Maybe it's the Iran NT staying just down the road. All I know is that I better post about it before the US is eliminated and I hate footy again.

I've watched a fair amount of football in my time and based on that I think it's reasonable to say what we've seen in the past week is a much different experience from everything that has come before. Admittedly, it's been a few years since I religiously watched EPL and UEFA so my point of reference may be missing a few changes that were rolled out in the interim. I could remedy this by looking up what's new and different just for 2026 but I'd rather go the meme route and claim...

WE ARE FINALLY SEEING THE AMERICANIFICATION OF FOOTBALL!

Buckle in.

Four quarters

Source.

Just like the NFL, World Cup matches now have four quarters that are separated by the normal halftime break and two mandatory hydration breaks brought to you by Powerade, the dehydration mutilator.

While player safety should be one of FIFA's top priorities, these breaks are occurring in air conditioned domes, at night, and in conjunction with an increase in the the number of allowed substitutions. Rather than having the broadcast show highlights or let the commentators riff, the hydration breaks are used for what was almost certainly their intended purpose - to show ads. Will we, in a few years, have commercial breaks at every throw-in? It certainly would be peak Americana.

To be honest, I don't entirely mind having three minutes to make nachos or check my phone but since hydration breaks are probably just a cash grab, I'm firmly on the side of the purists. Well, I am on their side so long as they acknowledge...

Matches have been extended from about 60 minutes of play to about 90

Commercials aren't fun (unless they have Zlatan) but they aren't as viscerally frustrating as time-wasting. This is the least-novel complaint about soccer but it's worth mentioning because it's being addressed. The worst part of the fan experience is to see mild contact cause a player to roll around on the field for five minutes then hop up and return to play as if nothing happened. It's especially frustrating when you're supporting the side that now has four fewer minutes to equalize (because - rest assured - one of those five minutes will be added at the end of the 90).

Goal kicks, throws, substitutions - all are opportunities to subject the fans to soap opera-tier theatre.

"It's part of the game."

This is the normal explanation given to idiot Americans complaining about diving and time-wasting. And while there's no shortage of casuals that simply want to whine about the underhanded aspects of the game, I don't buy itspartofthegame.

Simply, in the seven matches I've watched, it felt like there was 90+ minutes of uninterrupted action (interrupted only by halftime and hydration breaks brought to you by FIFA, the integrity mutilator). When I paid closer attention, I realized:

• Players in this tournament always seem to jog off when subbed, or at least take a brisk walking pace
• The ref does a countdown for throw-ins and goal kicks
• There haven't been any Neymar-tier rolling marathons

Players still go down on soft challenges but when a foul is given, play restarts quickly.

Mistaken identity

On the subject of Neymarisms, another itspartofthegame is simulation/embellishment. But after Miguel Amiron replaced Tim Ream in the referee's book for a simulated foul, players seem to have gotten the message that faking contact won't be part of this World Cup. I don't know if the system is perfect - Paraguay still got a free kick from the challenge and embellishment seems hard to police - but I think we're seeing progress.

In the Mexico opener, the ref announced the VAR decision on the PA like the NFL's iconic "after further review..."

Not every group has even played yet so I'll try not to jump to any hasty conclusions but at this early stage I haven't seen any unremedied divergences between objective reality and refereed reality. Moreover, the semi-automatic VAR of decisions that aren't a judgment call seem to be producing fairer results.

48 teams

There are 48 teams in this one, up from the usual 32. It wasn't enough for Italy to qualify, but it's still a lot. How did the new and unfamiliar names fare against the tournament favorites?

Germany 7 - 1 Curacao

Uh oh.

Spain 0 - 0 Cape Verde
Portugal 1 - 1 Congo DR
Belgium 1 - 1 Egypt

Oh. Crazy.

These results may be outliers but with the winners of each group playing a third-ranked team from another group in the Round of 32, you have to believe they would have been looking for three points. It's too early to know if the 48-team field is a good thing or a bad one but I'm leaning toward "more soccer is better".

Geopolitics

The tweet above went out the night before the US opener.

Five months ago:

Me

As of January 13, 2026 Donald Trump has not ordered the invasion of Greenland. He has taken a foreign despot prisoner and... conducted an airstrike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure... So while we're not currently at the "large scale military invasions" point, the choice for the 2026 FIFA Peace Prize was perhaps a bit optimistic.

Since we are living in the dumbest timeline, January's dust up gave way to a large scale bombing campaign and a variety of not-so-peaceful tweets threatening, among other things, that "A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again". There's something to be said about how this reflects on US Soccer but what's more important is to apply skills needed to survive in this timeline by finding the dark humor in it. President "You don't have the cards, Zelensky" tried to bluff against an actual trump card (oil) and lost but, in doing so, absolutely clowned Gianni Infantino's inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

Let's go!

Source.

The first US match was a lot of fun to watch. Possession was good except early in the second half when the players seemed to take their foot off the gas. I most enjoyed the handful of perfectly-weighted, in-curling through balls up the wings. After watching other teams struggle against a parked bus, I'm hopeful that incisive passing and some of the clever touches we saw against Paraguay will give us a chance against stronger sides.

tags:

america fifa soccer sports united states world cup