There is a particular kind of silence that falls over a stadium when the holders are dying on their feet,…
There are nights at a World Cup when the ground seems to shift under the whole tournament, and Sunday was…
Two giants fell on penalties this week, and every punter watching learned the same lesson twice: in the knockouts, the…
Brazil were a top-of-the-board contender on Sunday morning and a footnote by Sunday night. If this tournament has taught punters…
The safety net is gone. From today there are no more dropped points to absorb, no more "we’ll get them…
Every World Cup has its rhythm, and by the second matchday you start to feel it. The shocks of the…
— title: "World Cup 2026 Tips Today — 26 June Predictions & Best Bets | MatchEdge 26 $$CY$$" description: "My…
Monday is a quiet one — a rest day before the storm, the last pause in the calendar before the…
— title: "World Cup 2026 Round of 32 — How the Bracket Is Taking Shape | MatchEdge 26 $$CY$$" description:…
A week ago the map of this tournament looked orderly — the big names seeded neatly toward the latter stages,…
Every World Cup has a hinge, a moment when the sprawling group stage folds shut and the tournament narrows to…
There are matchdays at a World Cup that simply tidy up the table, and there are matchdays that tear it…
There is a particular kind of Sunday that only a World Cup can give you. The kind where you wander…
Tuesday is a rest day — the first without a ball kicked since the knockouts began — and it is…
This is where it ends. Two rest days, two matches left, and a tournament that has run for a month…
There is a particular silence that falls over a stadium when a heavyweight is knocked out on penalties — a…
A month ago the draw was a crowded, chaotic thing — forty-eight teams, a dozen groups, a hundred subplots. Now…
For three days the tournament held its breath, and by the time the dust settled in Kansas City in the…
For a fortnight this looked like a two-man conversation. Then, in the last eleven minutes against Brazil, Erling Haaland gatecrashed…
Two nights, two single-goal margins, and a final nobody quite saw coming when the tournament began. Spain and Argentina came…
There have been thirty-two of these tournaments, and never once — not in Uruguay in 1930, not in any of…
There is a quiet menace to this Spain side that the scorelines only half capture. Two games, not a single…
Forty years is a long time to wait for a rematch. The last time Spain and Belgium met in a…
It comes down to two teams and a hundred and three years of history that has kept them almost perfectly…
Picture the scene in a Dublin pub late on Wednesday night. The clock has crept past eleven, the last bus…
Some fixtures need no selling, and this is one of them. When Portugal and Spain meet in the round of…
Ten years ago, in a Paris night thick with tension, Portugal beat France to win Euro 2016 — and somewhere…
Some group games are formalities. This is not one of them. When France and Norway walk out at Gillette Stadium…
When a manager talks down his own team before a knockout match, it is worth leaning in. Ronald Koeman did…
The photograph that will define this World Cup may not have been taken yet. It is waiting somewhere in the…
