The 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup didn’t just bring together 48 national teams, but also millions of fans and storylines that made it such a unique edition. As soccer looks to continue to grow in the United States, join host Mariana Bermudez to digest how much the World Cup was able to accomplish in just a month.
Mariana: ¡Hola a todos! Welcome back, and, boy, do I mean welcome back, to From the Stands, a podcast where we dive deep into the world of soccer, and not just what happens on the pitch. I’m your host, Mariana Bermudez, and I am super excited to be back and running with this beloved project of mine. As the old saying goes, one always returns to where they were once happy. A lot has happened in the soccer world since you last heard from me, but the obvious topic has been, drum roll please…
[Sound effect]
The World Cup!
Truly, the summer of soccer promised a lot heading into this year’s FIFA Men’s World Cup, and a lot is what it brought. From surprising results to last-minute exquisite goals to hard-not-to-love fanbases, anything and everything took place. But as someone based in the United States, the main question in my mind continues to be: Did the World Cup achieve what it meant to in the U.S.?
There is a lot to unpack here.
So purchase your game ticket, pick the best seat and enjoy the match, as everything happens… from the stands!
[From the Stands – Theme Music]
This year, I spent my summer in Chicago. Right off the bat, I had already established FOMO, or fear of missing out, by staying in a non-host city during the duration of the World Cup.
For context, this would be the largest World Cup yet, with 48 qualified national teams and 104 games spread across three countries: Canada, Mexico and the United States. Just in the U.S., 11 cities were in charge of making the World Cup magic happen for both local and visiting fans, those being Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.
And this list, of course, did not include many other cities that served as base camps for national teams, from Croatia being settled in Virginia all the way to Japan in Tennessee. But like any good fan of the sport knew, it didn’t matter where you were: soccer fever was everywhere. I remember walking to work on June 11, the start of the World Cup, and seeing so many green Mexico jerseys. People could be going to work, dropping kids off to summer programs or even making their way to a watch party, but left and right Chicagoans were excited, geared up and prideful before the first whistle.
The World Cup is always something to be excited about, that’s something that I will always say, but this year it just happened to be played in our own backyard, which made it even more exciting.
In reality, a lot of people didn’t know what to expect from the United States when it was selected as a host back in 2018. It is no secret that soccer here has yet to reach the level of excitement that reigns in other countries around the world. Look at Mexico. Mexico was a no-brainer, being home to some of the most passionate soccer fanbases, and then you had Canada, which has slowly made soccer climb into the second-most followed sport in the nation.
With the U.S., growth for soccer remained slow and steady for a while. Interest in soccer slowly began to emerge in the 1990s, with the creation of Major League Soccer, the American soccer league also known as the MLS, and also with the 1994 Men’s World Cup taking place in the U.S. for the very first time. Now, as more star players join the ranks of the MLS – think Robert Lewandowski at the Chicago Fire or Messi in Inter Miami – there is now more buzz around the sport.
According to data collected by The Economist, between October and December of 2024, American fans self-declared their favorite sports to be as follows: in first place you have American football with 36 percent, basketball with 17 percent, soccer with 10 percent and then baseball with 9 percent. These were then followed by ice hockey, tennis, boxing and golf. As soccer continues to make a push in the U.S., the World Cup was expected to be the big boom, so to speak.
And it definitely proved to be a major boom, especially among visiting fans – which, if you ask me, I think was one of the most beautiful things that this tournament left us with.
While a lot of local fans were clearly ecstatic about the World Cup, whether they were supporting the United States or supporting one of many participating nations with cultural hubs across the country, visiting fans were even more ecstatic without having to be in their home ground. Not just that, but many took to social media to express some of the interesting discoveries they made and learned about in the U.S.
One of my favorite trends that I was seeing was fans immersing themselves into different American staples. There were fans recording their experiences at Dollar Tree, trying an In-N-Out burger and, even more fitting, there were Dutch fans taking over a Dutch Bros Coffee location – that one was definitely meant to be, if you ask me!
If anything, social media was the place to be when it came to the World Cup. It was a way to see how some of the greatest moments weren’t just happening among players, or within the vicinity of a stadium. Some of the most heartwarming stories came out of those that tugged at the human-interest side of soccer.
I must say that, as someone who was on social media daily to keep up with everything World Cup related, I can say you had storylines coming out of every hotspot involving the tournament, and here are three of my favorite ones. Those that stayed on my feed and, of course, beyond the tournament.
[Transition]
Let’s start with the adoption, so to say, of specific nations. And before you think I’m crazy and you start asking, “Mariana, what are you talking about?” I need you to walk with me. Please, walk with me. Just this once. I promise it’ll be worth it, because, for context, this “adoption trend” involved team Algeria.
In Lawrence, a historic college town in Kansas, the community welcomed the Algerian national team with open arms once they found out the team would make Lawrence their base camp. As I had mentioned earlier, each team was assigned a base camp – be it in the U.S., Mexico or Canada – and Lawrence happened to be Algeria’s.
But as I was saying, the community was excited to be a part of such soccer fever in the states. According to an article from BBC Sport, the city was so excited that it held “Soccer 101” classes, in which locals could be caught up to speed on everything soccer, Algerian culture and fan culture. An art installation was even made at The University of Kansas, embodying the Algerian flag, and restaurant owners even cooked halal food options to welcome visiting fans who were eager to catch a glimpse of the team during many of their training sessions.
The bottom line here is that even though Algeria only reached the Round of 32 in this tournament edition, they sure left with an even bigger fanbase in the United States.
Moving on, there were the iconic fan celebrations. Of course, I’m pretty sure we all saw them everywhere, but here I’m looking at you, Viking Row.
For those who don’t know, the Viking Row became the Norwegian national team’s iconic celebration every time they won a game or advanced in the tournament. Across Norway’s matches, supporters in the stands would stay seated and would mimic Viking oars across different rows within a stadium, usually started with the sound of a Viking horn. To save you from my possibly unpleasant attempt at interpreting the Viking Row, here is a snippet of what it was like.
[Norway’s Viking Row against Brazil during the Round of 16]
The tradition is fairly new, originated and first popularized by a loyal fan in December of 2025, but it grew immensely during the World Cup and on social media. It wasn’t too long before Norway’s squad even started to take part in the celebration, initiating it on the pitch after every victory in the tournament.
This would be Norway’s first time returning to the World Cup since 1998. After stunning five-time winners Brazil in the Round of 16, the Norwegians would reach the quarter finals for the very first time, rowing until the very end. The celebration not only connected the players more with their supporters, but it also showed the world how many people a tradition like it could reach, blending it with their passion for soccer.
I say we add that moment to the major FOMO list.
But finally, we had African excellence.
As I’m sure I have mentioned in a previous episode of From the Stands, Latin American fans live and breathe soccer, but African fans aren’t an exception to such a way of living. For this edition of the tournament, 10 African national teams – representing four out of five subregions in Africa – showcased just how much the sport has continued to grow across the continent.
Here are just a few simple facts to show what I mean:
Nine out of 10 nations were able to advance into the Round of 32 out of the group stage.
Egypt advanced to the Round of 32 and Round of 16 for the very first time.
The Democratic Republic of Congo returned to the World Cup after 52 years.
Morocco became the first African nation to advance to the quarter finals in two consecutive editions of the World Cup.
And, of course, we can’t forget about our beloved and favorite underdog, Cabo Verde. Known to be an archipelago with a population of half a million people, it captivated everyone in their Cinderella run. On paper, no one expected a first-time nation to break such standards, but Cabo Verde did not come to play – no pun intended – and proved everyone wrong. They proved the narrative wrong, the expected narrative wrong. From tying 0-0 against Spain in their first ever World Cup match to almost holding off Argentina in the Round of 32, they were able to write a new storyline in the soccer world. A new storyline that I’m pretty excited to see how it will continue to develop.
These examples come to show just how different and unique each World Cup edition can be, as well as how unique the experience of each fan can be. Whether you were supporting Spain from the very beginning, who ended up being the ultimate champions, or you chose to adopt a nation like the people of Lawrence did, we were all in it for the same purpose.
If there is one thing the World Cup taught the United States, now looking at it from a host nation perspective, it is how much potential there truly is in the growth of the sport if passion is placed at the forefront of it all.
To look at it from a personal viewpoint, I come from a family where my father has played soccer since he can remember, where my mother would actually stay awake until the late hours when she was in El Salvador to watch the Korea/Japan 2002 World Cup and where a little sister is little by little falling into the same addiction. That’s just one example of the many ways in which a sport like soccer and a tournament like the World Cup can influence people’s lives and continue to do so across generations. To have a country like the United States see what a tournament like the World Cup means to different fans in today’s day and age specifically, I think that’s something we can only hope to continue investing in.
[Transition]
Before I bring this episode to a close, I wanted to leave with a bonus anecdote from the tournament. As I was planning on what I wanted to speak about in this specific episode, there was one moment I kept thinking about, and I kept going back to that I thought was worth sharing. To reference my work adventures once again, I remember getting on the L train in Chicago after clocking out of work one day, specifically during the World Cup. At this point, we were in the Round of 32, and Paraguay and Germany were playing against each other. If you remember this game, you might know where I’m headed towards. The game was at a sizzling moment – it ended 1-1 in the regular time of 90 minutes, was taken into extra 30 minutes and nothing happened there, so it would finally be decided in a penalty shootout.
By the time I made it into the incoming train, the penalty shootout had already started. It was past 6 p.m. and the train was packed. Although, from what I could see, many people were headed to a nighttime Cubs baseball game that day, at that moment it was all about Paraguay and Germany during the World Cup. From young children who would bite their nails in support of Germany to groups of teenagers with eyes wide open watching Paraguay make history, time stopped and phones were lit up with green soccer fields everywhere.
I think as someone who’s phone lacks internet connection everytime I ride the train, I appreciated catching glimpses of the penalty shootout from other train riders. Remember, I didn’t have to be in a host city to feel the World Cup fever surrounding my environment, because everyone was breathing it, and I was definitely here for it.
It was moments like those that reminded me how, at the end of the day, everything really does happen from the stands. Yeah, yeah, call me cheesy, call me cheesy, okay? I am guilty, but I had to fit that in there.
This brings me to the conclusion of this episode of From the Stands. I’ll catch you next time for a new episode. Thank you so much for listening!
[From the Stands – Theme Music]
