World Cup 2026: England turn on the style; Fifa denies ticketless fans breached security – live

Key events

31m ago

Preamble

I fell asleep at some point during the Netherlands v Japan game. It had been a hot and drowsy day by the shores of Lake Annecy, a square and heavy heat, where the sun and the driving and the food and the boxed wine gently squeeze all the life from your body, like air being pressed out of a juice carton.

I remember Virgil van Dijk angling a header into the far corner, and when I came to it was 2-1, and everyone was heading to bed, drunk on tiredness, drunk on life, drunk on drink.

Not all of my friends care for football in any case, and so the World Cup had become a kind of mood music, something to fill the silences in conversation. Through the long and meandering chat about home renovations and Andy Burnham, an indistinct French voice occasionally cut through from a different universe. Maeda. Gravenberch. The Low Countries tempted to attain the final for the first time since 2010. My French isn’t great. Someone prised open a bottle of Heineken. Bodies draped themselves over the couch, fingers scrolled through phones, the immaculate decadence of boredom.

Jacob Steinberg

When Thomas Tuchel won the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 the success was built on unflinching defensive rigour and midfield discipline. Five years on, though, Tuchel’s England displayed neither of those qualities during a dreadful first half in Dallas. They kept losing the ball in dangerous areas, struggled to maintain their shape without the ball and were rocking when Croatia stung them with a second equaliser just before half-time.

The vibe could hardly have been less convincing. Anthony Barry, Tuchel’s No 2, let rip in an interview with ITV, accusing England of doing all the wrong things, of playing with “a nervous energy”, of making everything “confused and complicated” against opponents well versed in making their craft and experience in midfield count.

Of course, England got away with it in the end, the response in the second half astonishing, Barry’s words no doubt delivered in even stronger terms by Tuchel in the dressing room. Yet while they won their opening game in Group L thanks to a moment of breathtaking power from Jude Bellingham and a late breakaway goal from Marcus Rashford, the overall display was far from good enough.

If you think everything in England’s garden is rosy after banging in four goals against Croatia, Jacob Steinberg has some news for you …

There really is quite a lot of football occurring.

Ghana celebrated a 1-0 win against Panama in Toronto, joining England atop Group L:

And in Group K, Jonathan Wilson witnessed Colombia beating Uzbekistan 3-1, down in Mexico City:

“Let’s have it off,” one excited England fan told Sky Sports News outside the stadium after England’s victory.

Doesn’t he mean “Let’s have it”?

I wish I could say I will be speaking from a position of authority on England’s win against Croatia, but I was on a plane, coming home from Spain.

Therefore, your emails, in which you tell me what happened, and offer your first-class analysis, are going to be particularly important this morning. Get involved.

Mexican military forces intercepted and brought down a drone that flew near the South Korea team’s training camp ahead of its World Cup match against Mexico, a federal official told the Associated Press.

Military forces used specialised equipment to detect an “unregistered drone” near the South Korean camp, prompting them to “neutralise” it, the Mexican federal agent said.

Preamble

England are quite good, it would seem, after their opening Group L 4-2 win against Croatia:

While the rest of the world waits for England to be bad – or at least suffer a heartbreaking penalty shootout defeat against Argentina, or someone – their fans are certainly going to enjoy the next few weeks …

Let’s all talk about the World Cup!