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COUNT ON US TO KEEP YOU INFORMED

We’re almost a 25th of the way through the Geopolitics World Cup – four games down, 100 to go – so it’s the perfect time to reflect on what we’ve learned and noticed so far.

1 The emergence of a peculiar cultural phenomenon: football supporters paying top dollar for the privilege of farting around on a concourse. That was Fifa’s explanation for all the empty seats at South Korea v Czechia in Guadalajara. The stadium holds 46,000 and the official attendance was 44,985, but there were a lot more than 1,015 empty seats. “Please note,” pleaded a Fifa suit, “that, during last night’s match in Guadalajara, several ticketed fans could be seen standing in concourses rather than staying in their assigned seats throughout the match.”

2 USA USA USA might be the most exciting host team since Germany in 2006. They walloped Paraguay 4-1 in Los Angeles, with the Arsenal alumnus Folarin Balogun scoring twice. By half-time in his first GWC game, Balogun had scored as many World Cup goals as Marco van Basten, Wayne Rooney, Hugo Sánchez, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Steve Bloomer combined. Let’s just call it the Balogun d’Or and be done with it.

3 Drinks breaks, though essential, are major passion-killers if a team is on top. Don’t be surprised if coaches start to shape their tactics accordingly; let’s make a really fast start to the fourth quarter, eh lads?

4 The Chloe Kelly Paradox – that being left out can enhance your chances of individual glory – is playing out as expected. Four of the 12 goals have been scored by substitutes, including Oh Hyeon-gyu’s winner for South Korea against Czechia and Cyle Larin’s equaliser for Canada against Bosnia and Herzegovina. That match turned on an earlier triple substitution by Jesse Marsch in the 61st minute. With most games played in punishing heat, the World Cup is likely to be won by the best squad, not the best team.

5 Refcam is the future. So are Claude, populism and eejit trillionaires, so this isn’t necessarily a good thing, but the GWC version is a vast improvement on the Premier League’s attempt last season. It should still come with a hangover warning, mind, and there is a whiff of the refs being directed thus: “Keep looking at the goal to get the money shot – don’t worry about fouls, we’ll let you know if there’s a penalty.”

6 The USA USA USA kit is the best in the tournament, a future cult classic, and we’ll be taking no further questions.

7 Yaya Sithole is one of the finest footballers in a country of 65 million people. Yet whatever he achieves in his career, he is doomed to be remembered for the most untimely of shockers. Another South African, poor Pierre Issa, knows how he feels: Issa scored one-and-a-half own-goals against the hosts in South Africa’s opening match of France 98.

8 Gianni Infantino may have discovered the concept of humility.

9 During Qatar 2022, Adam Hurrey of Football Cliches fame wrote that the TV aesthetic of a World Cup – once unique to each tournament – has been the same at every competition since the turn of the century. His point stands (was that really the Azteca?), but the blood-red backdrop to Canada’s match gave it a unique flavour.

10 4-4-2, often dismissed as the unreconstructed oaf of football formations, might be making a comeback. According to your friends and mine, Fifa, three of the eight teams in action so far have played 4-4-2. Then again, one of them was Paraguay and they had their clock cleaned by USA USA USA so we’re not entirely sure what point we’re trying to make here. Let’s all calm down. We’re only four games into the tournament!

LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE

Will Unwin will take the GWC news blog through to 6pm BST (1pm EDT). John Brewin is then due to helm minute-by-minute coverage of Qatar 0-3 Switzerland from 8pm BST (3pm EDT). Then Jeff Rueter will be all over Brazil 2-2 Morocco at 11pm BST (6pm EDT), with Tom Bassam on duty for Haiti 0-2 Scotland on Sunday at 2am BST (9pm EDT) and Jonathan Howcroft on for Australia 0-2 Turkey at 5am BST (midnight EDT).

 QUOTE OF THE DAY

I’ve always been a dreamer, but I could never have imagined that an honour like this would come to a working-class English soccer player like me. How fitting then that I am here today as we prepare to celebrate the opening here in the US of the 2026 World Cup. It’s a powerful moment to recognise how the sport I love so much has grown in this country over the past three decades. To stand here in front of my friend Tom Cruise, the greatest movie star of our time, is quite frankly mind-blowing” – David Beckham, there, makes us feel just a little bit queasy as he gets his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

RECOMMENDED READING

Everything you need to know (and more) about every squad member at the GWC. All 1,248 of them, in our essential interactive guide. 

FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS

The year was 1966. Summertime in hot suburban Washington DC and a little boy, with nothing else to do, happens to turn on the TV and there’s this football game on. It looks like a big deal and a big stadium. Oh look, it’s England playing West Germany. Two countries playing each other, wow. And oh my, the Queen is even there. The little boy is entranced and watches with great excitement as England win. Geoff Hurst becomes an instant hero. The next day, the importance of the game is certified by headlines in the New York Times. The little boy is hooked and becomes a dedicated football fan for life, with a strong bias in favour of England (sorry Barry!)” – David Beyda.

In 1970, having left my first teaching job (in anthropology) at UCLA, I arranged to meet a university friend from Oxford (he was teaching economics in Cuba at the time) in Mexico City for the World Cup. We got tickets for the Soviet Union v Belgium match at the Azteca Stadium, the Soviets winning 4-1. The next day, Mexico beat El Salvador and I was driving in our rented VW through the city when the crowds came out, the millions that is. No problem. Hit the horn ‘ba ba bababa’, yelled ‘Viva Mexico!’ as we crawled along and we made it through easily, grinning all the way. My friend, who wanted to see pyramids and old towns but had no interest whatever in football and came along out of comradeship or indulgence, found the moment exasperating and shouted irritably at me: ‘Do you have to make that bloody row?!’ He had to suffer again because we got tickets to the Brazil v England game, the best international that I have ever seen. The crowd was totally for Brazil, chanting ‘ladrona, ladrona’ whenever Bobby Moore had the ball (because of an accusation that he had stolen something in a jewellery store in Colombia as I recall) but when the game ended a lad in the seat just below us turned round and said: ‘Many chances’. True. I was still in tears over the Pelé-Bobby Moore shirt exchange, the Gordon Banks save and the sheer thrill of the whole game. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be in Mexico City was very heaven” – Michael C Gilsenan.

When I was a child my parents subscribed me to a weekly (I think) part-work publication called Football Handbook, one of those things you see advertised on television even now - only now they encourage people to spend all of their Tin money on building a model of a famous building one matchstick at a time, rather than on encouraging nippers to be better footballers. One of the features of Football Handbook was that it followed the careers of two apprentices for a season, one of whom was Kenny Jackett (I forget who the other was. Possibly Paul Allen). I am not sure what it was about Kenny, but he made enough of an impression on me for me to follow his career more closely than perhaps any other player ever, even though he never played for the team that I support. It was a sad day when he retired from football, and of course an even sadder one now. I know that this email isn’t funny, but then things like this prove that growing older isn’t funny, either. RIP, Kenny. You will always be a part of my childhood” – Richard O’Hagan.

If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day is … Richard O’Hagan. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here.

RECOMMENDED LISTENING

Listen up! It’s the second World Cup Daily podcast. And you can watch it here if video is your thing.

THESE BOOTS AREN’T MADE FOR WALKING

In a pleasingly surreal twist to their Geopolitics World Cup campaign, England were the victims of a security breakdown after the team’s match boots were stolen before their first training session in Kansas City. The theft was understood to have taken place while equipment was being transported from the squad’s pre-tournament base in Florida to their training camp at Swope Soccer Village in Missouri. Boots belonging to the players were understood to be among the stolen items, along with official tournament balls and training equipment. It appears the team have now recovered the majority of the missing items. Had those efforts failed, we may have had to watch Harry Kane and co take on Croatia in Crocs, slippers, novelty socks, or perhaps barefoot.

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

Ghana’s government has described Canada’s decision to deny Thomas Partey a visa for his country’s GWC game against Panama on Wednesday as “high-handed and extremely unfair”.

As mentioned above, USA USA USA started their tournament with a thumping win against Paraguay featuring a screamer from Gio Reyna. Here’s Jeff Rueter’s report. Tim Ream made history twice in the match: first, becoming the oldest player in the history of the US men’s national team to appear at a GWC, and second, becoming the first player at a GWC to benefit from the new “mistaken identity” rule change.

Not long before the big match in Los Angeles, Canada clawed back a point against Bosnia and Herzegovina in Toronto thanks to Cyle Larin’s equaliser. Joe Callaghan was there to witness it.

Carlo Ancelotti is under “perhaps more pressure than the president” as he attempts to lead Brazil to GWC glory, according to Alisson.

And, as the nation prepares for a high-stakes meeting with Haiti, Scotland has been gripped by GWC fever, reports Severin Carrell.

RECOMMENDED WATCHING

Is Fifa allowed to make AI athletes? Mark McPartland investigates.

STILL WANT MORE?

Barney Ronay was at Los Angeles Stadium for the pomp, pageantry, flag waving and “surprisingly sexualised hip thrusts and groin grabs” – his words, not ours – of the US opening ceremony. Here’s his take on events.

Our picture desk has put together a gallery of the best photos from the grand opening in Los Angeles, as well as Canada’s opening ceremony.

Rodrygo, the Real Madrid winger, will be absent when Brazil take on Morocco later on owing to his ongoing recovery from a knee injury sustained in March. He has written about his “immense sadness” over missing the tournament, his belief in Carlo Ancelotti and his pride in Brazil. Read our new Big Website colleague’s column here.

Jacob Steinberg and David Hytner have dug deep into the making of Declan Rice, England’s midfield powerhouse, speaking to his old PE teacher among others.

Scotland are preparing for their first World Cup match in 28 years and Ewan Murray is cautiously optimistic about their chances against Haiti. Emphasis on the cautiously.

Haiti are no pushovers, however. Bryan Armen Graham has the inside track on a team fighting to change the narrative around their country.

Socceroos fans are enjoying themselves in Vancouver before Australia’s opener against Turkey, reports Jack Snape.

With Gianni Infantino urging football fans to “chill” despite the assorted human horrors clinging to the underbelly of the tournament, Cold War Steve has sent up the Fifa president in his usual style.

And, to cap it all off, John Brewin has compared and contrasted the BBC’s coverage of the tournament with ITV’s “celebrity slop”. Mmm, delicious slop. We can’t get enough of the stuff.

BEYOND THE GWC

The Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky has increased his stake in West Ham to around 43%, becoming the club’s largest shareholder, following the resignation of the co-chairman David Sullivan amid allegations of misconduct.

Ryan Christie has penned a new three-year deal to stay at Bournemouth.

And good news for Premier League players who can’t control their hands: pulling an opponent’s hair will no longer necessarily warrant an automatic red card under changes to refereeing guidelines for next season.

RECOMMENDED FOLLOWING

How do you do fellow kids? Yes, there’s now a TikBook account with all things of a Big Website sporting focus. So, if you’re there, you know what to do. 

MEMORY LANE

8 January 1962: Two years after starring for Blackburn Rovers in the 1960 FA Cup final, Hibernian winger Ally MacLeod is pictured relaxing in front of the fire with a wee dug. This mutt is noticeably friendlier than the stray that wandered into his press conference after Scotland drew with Iran at the 1978 finals. “This little fellow is my last friend in the world,” he quipped, seconds before the dog bit him.

 USA! USA!! USA!!!?