June is a brutal time to try to do a North American event outdoors for a global market. Sunset on even the East Coast puts games after midnight CET, and daytime temperatures regularly exceed 30 deg C even in Toronto. Most of the US ones can expect 37 C. In a humid place like Texas, even the evenings will stay above 30 C well into the night.
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As a night owl I am fully up for it, but there is one at 5am I’ll pass.
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Is this a new sitcom?
I see FIFA have banned fans from taking re-usable water bottles into all the WC venues.
It’s to help ensure the safety of the players and attendees.
Hearts of gold those fella’s.
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Except it doesnt because the fans of course can throw the massively over priced water bottles they are now forced to buy in the stadium.
FIFA have reached the Trump stage of not even caring to lie convincingly anymore
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I hope they build this into pre match.
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I’m usually so mentally tapped out by football when the international windows come around that I don’t watch any of it - last time I watched a World Cup was probably South Africa and I stopped watching after the group stage.
However the jeopardy and standard of football this year has been so low that I’m actually interested in this one despite all the off-field problems I have with it (and my enthusiam will probably die by time Mexico plod their way to 0-0 on opening day).
One thing I’ve decided though is that I’m not listening to anyone who lists Brazil as one of the favourites for this. If anyone says that they are paying even less attention than me.
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Just reflecting on my own personal World Cup journey. On a personal note, World Cups generally coincide with horrible personal circumstances during my adult years:
1998 - Was in with the wrong crowd, lucky not to be jailed. Or worse
2002 - Unemployed
2006 - Had left a job I loved for one I didn’t. Then lost the job and couldn’t get the old one back.
2010 - Torrid Affair. Leave it at that.
2014 - Company I’d worked for for 8 years from the end of 2006 went under. Broke up with my fiancee of roughly the same period. Moved back home (Mom’s)
2018 - Was okay but just miserably unhappy (you’ll probably find a post from me on here somewhere about partner abuse at about this period).
2022 - Probably the only stable period in my life coinciding with a World Cup
2026 - Severe strain in life. Both kids requiring specialized education requirements which is extraordinarily expensive, costs have skyrocketed and I’m behind the curve on everything.
In short. Can the fucking thing 
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I have to admit, that I found these grating, but they are actual grass roots fan culture. Are they going to ban some twat banging a drum the whole game, or that dreadful screeching rendition of “The Great Escape” that the England band insist on boring us with?
Or do these bans only apply to African fan culture?
We have a winner…
Official team photo of Norway for the World Cup
Edit
This is spectacular—and NOT AI. The Norwegian national team unveiled its official pre-World Cup photo. Everyone is dressed as Vikings, set against a backdrop that evokes that era.
Photographer David Yarrow said the players loved the idea of taking a photo like this. They rented a beach near Oslo and staged the entire Viking scene there.
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Who’s the young lady slightly left of centre?
Enslaved playing in the background… Right, @Magnus? 
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They’ll never get there in time! The winds are against them this time of year
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I go through cycles with this, a bit like the kombucha lady meme, where periodically think “ok, this is a travesty and I hate what they are doing to the game, but Im going to be excited once this actually starts.” And then I familiarize myself with the fixtures to see what blocks of time I should block off on my calendar and other than the England group that looks like a proper world cup group, I see only about 4 other games in the entire first round that look worth paying attention to. And one of those is Scotland vs Brazil which I am positive will be absolutely shit.
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I’m currently reading this and I’ve realised despot shitty run countries revelling in sports washing is a tradition of the World Cup… not a new thing.
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Despotic shitty countries using sportswashing is why the European Cup took off as an event, Real Madrid could provide an annual sportswash..
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