UNITED KINGDOM PERSPECTIVE

London watches the tournament with the ironic distance of one who knows football better than the host and is not shy about saying so. The dominant angle is not the party but its logistical failures and political backdrop. British coverage immediately flags Trump's absence — 'first US president to skip his team's opening match' — noting that Sheinbaum and Prime Minister Mark Carney also skipped their respective openers, as if none of the three host leaders wanted to fully associate with the event. But it is on organization that the English gaze is sharpest: FIFA is accused of inflating attendance at the South Korea-Czechia match, announcing 44,985 spectators in a 46,000-seat stadium while hundreds of seats stood empty, the body defending itself by distinguishing 'scanned tickets' from 'visual occupancy.' Ticket prices and demand for a tournament expanded to 48 teams are openly questioned. On broadcasting, Fox is called out for cutting to commercials 'in the middle of the first two matches' and missing Shakira's performance, a 'cardinal sin' denounced by fans. One luminous exception pierces this skepticism: the story of Folarin Balogun, born in New York by accident to a British mother deemed 'too pregnant' to board in 2001, now the star of the American 4-1 — a fate the English press savors as an irony about borders and belonging.