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England’s strength in depth is almost unmatched. It’s probably only bettered by World Cup favourites France. What other country can afford to leave stars like Trent Alexander-Arnold, Cole Palmer and Phil Foden at home without missing much of a beat?

Such is the competition for places among the Three Lions that many footballers who could play for England actually represent other countries instead. Some of those are personal choices, some are more down to the quality of their positional rivals, some due to closer ties with those other nations, and more often than not they are a combination of all three.

You can actually make an alternative (and functional) England XI out of players who are at this World Cup, but not in Thomas Tuchel’s squad. Don’t believe us? Have a gander for yourself…

Owen Goodman – goalkeeper

It was a struggle to find another goalkeeper at this World Cup who could technically have played for England, but we just about got there (in a more perfect world, David Raya signs for Blackburn Rovers a couple of years earlier to gain British citizenship, but I guess that’s asking too much).

Having sifted through all 47 other nations, Crystal Palace prospect Owen Goodman is the only player who fits the bill. The 22-year-old played for Canada and England’s youth sides, though eventually revealed his dream to represent the World Cup co-hosts last summer.

However, head coach Jesse Marsch initially believed Goodman, who lived in Canada from the ages of five to 13, could not be called up due to concerns over his citizenship. The process to resolve this issue started and finished in late 2025, paving the way for Goodman to join the Canadian setup.

Aaron Wan-Bissaka – right-back

Aaron Wan-Bissaka was once part of a young British core at Manchester United under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. When he was signed for £50m from Crystal Palace in 2019, he was expected to break into the England squad.

Alas, he only ever earned one call-up, and stiff competition from the likes of Kyle Walker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Reece James and Kieran Trippier meant Wan-Bissaka never played for the Three Lions.

Wan-Bissaka was wooed by DR Congo for half a decade before deciding to ratify his switch of international allegiance in 2025, just in time to help them secure World Cup qualification. It’s ironic that he played so well in their eventual last-32 defeat to England.

Axel Tuanzebe – centre-back

If injuries hadn’t hampered Axel Tuanzebe’s career, he may very well have fulfilled his potential and become an England regular. He was highly rated coming out of United’s academy system and was tipped to captain the first team, though fitness worries made it difficult for him to play for the Red Devils on a regular basis.

Tuanzebe moved to England from DR Congo as an infant and was a regular in the Young Lions teams. But after growing out of those age groups, he failed to even knock on the door of the England team and, like Wan-Bissaka would a year later, locked in DR Congo as his national side.

Kevin Danso – centre-back

Kevin Danso’s Ghanaian parents decided to emigrate to Milton Keynes from Austria, the country of his birth, when he was six. He came through the Dons’ academy and made the switch to Germany with Augsburg at 16.

This multiculturalism still embodies Danso to this day. He told L’Equipe: “I arrived in England when I was six years old. I could have played for England. I lived there for 10 years before going to Augsburg. And it’s strange, sometimes I feel more English than anything else, but sometimes more Austrian or more Ghanaian as well. I am happy to have this multiculturality, it allows me to be who I am.”

Austria were aware of Danso even when still with MK Dons, capping him at U15 level and fast-tracking him into the senior side in 2017 while still a teenager.

Antonee Robinson – left-back

Another son of Milton Keynes is left-back Antonee Robinson, now one of America’s best players thanks to his father earning citizenship having lived in New York.

Between Championship spells at Bolton and Wigan, Robinson earned a call-up to the United States senior side, while England were only offering an U21 berth. He picked the USMNT and has now represented them at three tournaments, all the while the Three Lions have cycled through a host of left-backs.

Michael Olise – right wing

Michael Olise has said he hails “from four countries: France, Algeria, Nigeria and England.” Despite that, there was only one choice in his heart: “I have always had a connection with the France national team, that is why I play for France.”

It didn’t stop the FA from trying to change his mind. After all, Olise was born in Hammersmith Hospital and grew up in the Greater London suburb of Hayes, previously home to other English geniuses such as Glenn Hoddle and Ray Wilkins.

Obviously, it’s hard to get on a foreign radar when you’re still just a kid, so Olise’s mother is said to have sent tapes of him to the French Football Federation, eventually landing on the desk of a youth coach. In 2019, Olise was called up by France’s U18s, finally breaking into Les Bleus’ setup.

Jamal Musiala – midfield

Bayern Munich wizard Jamal Musiala was born in Germany and plays for Germany. That should be case open and closed there, right?

Well, it’s not that simple. Musiala’s father is part-British and their family moved to England when he was seven, joining the academies of Southampton and then Chelsea. He quickly found his way in the England youth setup, starring alongside future Three Lions in Jude Bellingham, Morgan Rogers and Noni Madueke.

The tide started to turn against England when Musiala’s family relocated back to Germany during his late teenage years, with Bayern Munich acquiring him from Chelsea. Days prior to his 19th birthday, Musiala announced he wanted to represent Germany at senior level. Even before turning 24, he has amassed 46 caps, is one of few flair players in Die Mannschaft’s ranks and will no doubt be a favourite under Jurgen Klopp (head coach’s job pending).

Scott McTominay – midfield

For many years, there were few England supporters rueing missing out on Scott McTominay to their Scottish neighbours north of the border. That sentiment may have flipped over the last couple of seasons.

At Manchester United, McTominay was an industrious if unspectacular squad option. It probably explains why Scotland went all-in with their pitch, whereas Gareth Southgate is said to have only sent him a text.

McTominay took his talents to Napoli in 2024 and announced himself as one of Europe’s leading box-crashing midfielders. It’s not a position or profile the Three Lions are lacking in, though he would have been a handy option for Tuchel to bring on from the bench, right?

Antoine Semenyo – left wing

When Ghana were dumped out of the 2010 World Cup in cruel fashion by Uruguay, they inadvertently left a lasting mark on Antoine Semenyo, whose Ghanaian family were left devastated by the result.

Up until his January transfer to Manchester City, almost all of Semenyo’s life was spent in the south of England. He had unsuccessful trials at Arsenal, Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Millwall before heading west to Bristol City, developing into a fine all-round forward in the Championship.

Impressive performances across 2022 saw Ghana swoop in and pip England to the post before securing a Premier League move to Bournemouth. Had he emerged as more of an obvious talent earlier, the Black Stars may have had more of a fight to contend for his loyalties.

Folarin Balogun – forward

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo about Folarin Balogun of late, and you can’t really blame him for that. His red card for the USMNT against Bosnia was accidental, and the furore started by Donald Trump to suspend his ban to face Belgium was out of his hands.

Even despite that humiliating exit to Belgium, Balogun has become a favourite in the States for his other contributions at this World Cup, ending the tournament with three goals.

But Balogun could have very easily represented another nation, while it’s down to a row over flights that he was even able to play for the US in the first place. His Nigerian parents visited New York while his mother was seven months pregnant, and she was not able to board a return flight to their home in London. Balogun earned American citizenship by birthright, and in 2023, he switched allegiances from England to the US. Given there is no clear successor to Kane, the FA may well regret not tying the Arsenal academy graduate down to their regime.

Read more

• Report: The secret World Cup Panini traders of New York City
• Dan Walker: BBC or ITV? There’s only one winner at this World Cup

Erling Haaland – forward

You probably already know that Erling Haaland was eligible to represent England, given the topic has been discussed ad nauseum ever since he returned to the country in 2023 when signing for Manchester City.

Indeed, Haaland was born in Leeds while his father, Alf-Inge, still played for the Elland Road side, and the future striker was raised as a fan of the Whites. Thus, there was a possibility that Haaland and Harry Kane could have joined forces at international level, though he insists he always had his sights set on representing Norway instead.

“It was natural for me to choose Norway,” Haaland said. “You never know how it would be if maybe my father played longer in England or whatever. Maybe I would be English, I don’t know. But yeah, I’m Norwegian and I’m proud of it.”

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NEW YORK – It is possible, though unlikely, that I, a woman of 5ft 1in with a strong London accent, could ever be mistaken for an undercover member of the NYPD.

On the hottest day of summer in the city, on the corner of Rockefeller Plaza, I cannot help but notice I am being eyed surreptitiously. I am loitering around the spot where they normally put the big Christmas tree; for now, it has been transformed into a World Cup fan village.

All around me, deals are being done, through slights of hand and hushed, focused whispers. “Excuse me,” I approach the man who appeared to be regarding me with such caution. The eyes are averted again – in a flash, he is gone.

I have stumbled upon a secret trade. Of packs and cards, and complex filing systems of pen and paper. These are the Panini football sticker fanatics – they are filling up their annuals one player at a time and they are, I quickly appreciate, the most wholesome people you are likely to meet all summer.

“This is something we grew up doing every World Cup, trading at school,” says Clara, from Brazil. She started in 2002. “Here we are 20 years later – I’m ‘doing it for my son’” she says, miming inverted commas and a pantomime wink.

She is sitting opposite John, who has been compiling Panini sticker books since Mexico ’86. I ask if he got Diego Maradona that year. “Yes,” he says, and realises my accent. “Sorry about that.”

Passers-by are stopping to observe the molecular spreadsheets they are compiling to check which stickers they still need to complete their book.

“I don’t know if you saw this lady was here with her husband, they were gobsmacked,” John adds. “You’re trading what, like drugs?! It’s like, absurd. I started the day missing 200, so probably now I’m missing maybe 150.”

There is a serious point here, in that the Panini people are desperate to engage with the World Cup. The stickers are not cheap – Clara estimates she has spent just under $300 trying to complete her book – but it is more accessible than trying to watch a game.

On the day we are speaking, Norway are playing Brazil in the last 16. Resale tickets cost thousands.

“They raise the prices for everything for the World Cup, transport, planes, transport to the stadiums,” says Kyle, from Argentina. “Right now it’s £100, £150, it used to be like 20 bucks. Make money some other way – they are robbing us with the tickets.”

Strewn across the pavements are hundreds of sticker backs. Across the street, the face of Iraq and Luton Town forward Ali Al-Hamadi is plastered onto the marble wall.

A group of collectors in Mexico shirts have come across the river from New Jersey. They have “different books, from Canada, Mexico – we wanted the Mexican team first”. And they are inspired by the same reason. “I grew up watching Barcelona, but started leaning more to West Ham – but money doesn’t let me go to the games.”

Read more

• Daniel Storey: Six reasons I fear for England against Norway
• Kat Lucas: Lionel Messi ‘match-fixing’ conspiracy is all Fifa’s own fault

A fan from Tenerife wants all the stickers of two squads – Spain, and England. “But I don’t care about selling – I just trade. I went to watch [live] Norway against Senegal, and then I saw Croatia and Ghana in Philadelphia. I don’t really care about how much they cost.”

From the street corner, somebody approaches in search of a purple border. “No, no,” they are quickly told. “That’s too exotic.”

“Some [borders of the stickers] are blue, orange, green, and red ones too,” Carla explains. “Those are very, very rare – people are selling them for like $30. That guy was asking for purples, but I’ve never seen them.

“It depends where you buy the cards – some people give them out free, some people give out for $10, 15, 2, 3.”

One man is selling the hardest-to-come-by stickers for up to $600. A Guatemalan family in Manchester United shirts are so close to completing their book that “it is starting to get hard to get the stickers – I only have less than 100 to go”.

Clara says: “I’ve made the calculation. For stickers only, to complete the book, you would need $284. Now, I went to Costco and I got the special box and the hardcover book that was $79.99 – but you get some sticker packs, so it maybe goes down to $5 or so – so you would be spending $290.”

An expensive hobby in a World Cup of insatiable cost – “but here’s the thing,” she explains. “Sometimes people are so nice. If you have a little extra, he has 20 that I need, I have 15 he needs, he’s like ‘take the five’. You end up making friends.”

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Newcastle United face the prospect of another summer-long transfer saga after Bruno Guimaraes’ representatives told the club he wants to move to Arsenal.

Guimaraes, who expected to move to Manchester City two years ago when Newcastle were actively sourcing sales to comply with profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), is understood to be unsettled in the face of interest from the Premier League champions.

But The i Paper has been told that Newcastle view the latest developments as agent-driven and are maintaining their stance that they would not welcome any bids for the player. As of yet there has been no contact from Arsenal and Newcastle believe there is “no decision to make” on Guimaraes’ future.

And insiders said talk of a £60m deal for the Brazil midfielder is “laughable”. They believe his pedigree would demand a fee equivalent to Sandro Tonali and Elliot Anderson, who were valued at £100m and £115m respectively.

Nevertheless it represents an unwelcome development in a summer of transition at St James’ Park. While the club telegraphed the sales of Tonali and Anthony Gordon, who left before the World Cup in an £80m switch to Barcelona, and required both to comply with financial fair play rules and give themselves more spending power for the planned summer overhaul of a squad that has gone stale, they do not want to lose Guimaraes.

Not only is he viewed as a talisman within the dressing room he is also an important player for the way Newcastle play. A brutal dip in form last season – which laid the foundations for much of the change coming this summer – coincided with Guimaraes being out through injury.

Newcastle’s summer plans

It would also raise fresh questions about how realistic Newcastle’s ambition under the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) is. The club’s CEO David Hopkinson talked of competing for major trophies by 2030 but there is an unmistakeable pivot towards players of potential and lowering the age of the squad, with a £20m move for promising Ajax teenager Sean Steur in the final stages.

Perhaps understandably Guimaraes, who was sold a different vision of competing for league titles and being regulars in the Champions League, has had his head turned by talk of Arsenal’s interest.

Newcastle’s view is that they are building a fresher, younger team that will enable Eddie Howe to push for European qualification again. They are pushing hard to try and sign Switzerland international Johan Manzambi – although the Freiburg star has other interest and Newcastle sources are remaining cautious amid optimism that he wants to join.

Read more

• Michael Hincks: Tottenham’s spending is an insult to Aston Villa and Newcastle
• Kat Lucas: How Tottenham afforded Tonali and their transfer plans now

Interestingly Lewis Miley, who was secured to a long-term contract earlier in the summer, is set to take a prominent first team role next season with Newcastle sources believing he is ready for a breakthrough season.

They retain an interest in Monaco midfielder Lamine Camara – although nothing is imminent on that front – and are understood to have other “exciting targets” who are yet to emerge. They believe that a move for James Trafford, who is away on England duty, is also possible.

But the rebuild would be undermined by the departure of Guimaraes, who is a crucial part of the dressing dynamic.

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SANDWICH, MASSACHUSETTS – If there was some doubt as to whether England were favourites in Mexico City, they cannot ignore or avoid that tag in Miami. The draw has opened up for England in a way that would make even Gareth Southgate blush: DR Congo, Mexico and Norway for a place in a World Cup semi-final. None of those are currently ranked in the top 18 in the world.

Yet if Mexico was a test of England’s steel and ability to cope in adversity and atmospheric pressure, Norway is a step up in quality. Like England, there is a sense of incremental improvement as they move through the knockout rounds. We analyse six reasons for Norway to be confident of causing a second upset on the spin.

Haaland is quite good

I’m not promising to tell you anything ground-breaking here, but the two best centre-forwards in world football will meet in Miami. This is Haaland’s debut major tournament and he has led the line in outrageously efficient fashion. We know he doesn’t need lots of touches – he won’t against England either.

Haaland’s international goalscoring record is even better than his club numbers. You know how we talk of 20-goal per season strikers? Well Haaland has now done that in 2025-26, but for his country. He has got as many international goals in his career as Ronaldo and Zlatan Ibrahimovic and he is 25. To repeat: quite good.

Set-piece threat

Although England were magnificent when deliberately dropping towards their own goal against Mexico, they have actually defended their penalty area pretty poorly during this tournament, both from open play and set pieces. And we saw how Ezri Konsa got into a mess for Mexico’s first goal.

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Norway are the best team in the world to exploit any set-piece frailty. The list of likely starters who are 6ft 4in or taller: Kristoffer Ajer, Torbjorn Heggem, Sander Berge, Alexander Sorloth, Haaland. That’s half the team and it presents a headache for how to counteract the problem. Look for Jordan Pickford coming out to take charge.

Nusa cutting inside

Antonio Nusa still has a shot at winning the Young Player of the Tournament award. He has already made one significant career move to RB Leipzig from Club Brugge – there will be interest this summer and beyond.

The issue is the special move: Nusa drops deep to pick up the ball, drives forward and then quickly cuts inside before shooting. If England have a natural central defender at right-back, they are absolutely going to have to guard against Nusa running free towards the penalty box.

England’s midfield legs

There is a week between the two fixtures, but England put a lot into their last-16 tie and as such there are doubts about the midfield energy. Rice is still carrying a fitness concern and accumulated fatigue, Jordan Henderson is out of the tournament and Thomas Tuchel clearly isn’t convinced by Kobbie Mainoo.

Brazil lost to Norway because Carlo Ancelotti got his central midfield shape wrong and left Casemiro with too much work to do. The best way to beat this team is to stymie the service from the two central midfielders into Martin Odegaard and Nusa. England are going to have to press them into playing backwards or making mistakes.

Odegaard and the change of tempo

I would argue that Odegaard is the first true playmaker that England have faced in this tournament. Luka Modric is the closest but this was a tournament too far. Ghana tried to counter, Panama used wingers and Mexico had Julian Quinones and crosses into Raul Jimenez as their two most potent weapons.

How will England counteract that? Rice clearly knows Odegaard well and could follow him around, but then that slightly negates Rice’s high-energy style. What England must avoid is Odegaard having time between the lines to play through balls. He’s only created four chances in this World Cup so far. It only takes one pass to Haaland.

Attacking right-backs

England have been troubled down their left flank in this World Cup. Ghana should have earned a penalty from a ball down the right channel. The goal against DR Congo came from a ball from the right and Yoane Wissa should have made it 2-0 from an Aaron Wan-Bissaka cross.

Julian Ryerson was one of the best attacking right-backs in Europe last season, his 15 Bundesliga assists second only to Michael Olise. Put it this way: if England were spooked by Wan-Bissaka’s forward runs, Ryerson is going to be a problem.

Read more

• Daniel Storey: I went to smalltown America in search of World Cup fever
• Kat Lucas: Football, Guantanamo Bay and the shadow of shame that hangs over this World Cup

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NEW YORK — The award for the most chaotically eccentric post-match interview of the World Cup has to go to Hossam Hassan.

“I will say what’s on my mind regardless of the consequence, because I don’t care,” said the Egypt head coach.

“This is clearly a rigged match. If they want Argentina to win so bad, why call everyone else to come and participate?”

Hassan had just watched a two-goal lead evaporate before his eyes, Egypt knocked out by the world champions after a VAR debacle involving two goals – one which was allowed to stand, and one which was not. A foul on Argentina’s Lisandro Martinez was given, preventing a goal. When it was an infringement on Mo Salah at the other end, it was play on.

Tin hats around the world, and particularly from IP addresses in Madeira, Portugal, transmitted the signal. Across the globe, keyboards hammered home the conspiracy theory that the World Cup has been predetermined so that Lionel Messi can win it again. Before a ball was kicked there were grumblings about Argentina’s side of the draw, avoiding Spain, France and Portugal.

It should go without saying that there is little point giving credence to the idea that the World Cup is being deliberately gifted to one nation. For one, the hypothesis conveniently ignores Brazil and England, two of the initial favourites, in their half of the pot. If you have ever been involved in an office group project, you will accept how difficult it is to organise two or three people to do anything, let alone dozens of officials to purposely rig an entire competition under the noses of the watching world.

But this is the problem when Fifa dirty their hands like this. The soot contaminates everything it touches. In the days after Donald Trump’s intervention to repeal the suspension of USA striker Folarin Balogun, everything feels fair game. When sporting decisions are dictated by phone calls from the head of state, the boundaries of credibility are shattered. Whichever way you squint at it, the bigger picture looks crooked.

If we are operating in a climate of hyper-sensitivity to cronyism and corruption, Gianni Infantino has made it that way.

The result is that one of the greatest ever World Cup comebacks – and quite possibly the game of the tournament – has been tarnished. Messi did the unthinkable again, wrestling his country back from the brink. His brilliance shines like a light through the fog of farce circulating around the knockout stages; it makes him as much a victim as anyone else.

Read more

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Apart from anything else, the notion that Argentina are alone in benefitting from officiating incompetence is self-evidently ridiculous. England were fortunate not to concede a penalty against Ghana. In their win over Paraguay almost every conceivable decision went against the French. Jonathan Tah’s goal for Germany in the round of 32 was needlessly ruled out. We are not really meant to say it anymore, but Balogun’s red card itself was harsh.

There will always be those who see what they want to see. Their plots are usually dismissed as outlandish, but only for as long as the ordinary rules of the competition appear unshakeable. Once public confidence is lost in the integrity of the game, it is not easy to recover.

That is why there has to be a clean slate in 2027. Gianni Infantino has one year left in office until the next Fifa presidential vote, when he will seek re-election. Before Balogun, that was questionable. Now it is unconscionable.

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NEW YORK – In the mesh cages of Guantanamo Bay, with the sun bearing down and detainees shacked by the ankles, hundreds of Muslim men and boys would use an expression to one another: “I resist, therefore I live.”

As the eyes of millions remain on the United States during this World Cup, 400 miles to the southeast lies the naval base at the centre of countless allegations of human rights abuses. For its opponents, it is an unresolved symbol of injustice; or in Arabic, Zulm, which translates literally into putting something outside of its rightful place.

I spoke with former detainees who spent years inside Guantanamo. They told the stories of their capture, torture and illegal detention, and of the extraordinary moments of human spirit on the makeshift football pitches of the camps by the Cuban coast.

In the peak of the “War on Terror” after the 9/11 attacks, 779 men were held there; more than 98 per cent have never been convicted. Fifteen of them remain there today. Over the past four weeks, the US has sought to use the World Cup to bolster its international reputation; amidst the noise, the last voices of “Gitmo” have gone unheard.

‘I never dreamed I would end up here’

Mansoor Adayfi was born into a traditional tribal community in the Yemeni mountains. Some of his earliest memories are of going to fetch water from a well and a life without electricity. He moved to the city for a new life, studying computer science, when he was selected for an academic project to travel to Afghanistan. At the time, Afghan war lords were being rewarded with bounties for young men handed over to the Americans. He was 18-years-old.

“I was taken by the American marines – they told me I’m al-Qaeda,” Adayfi tells The i Paper. In the CIA interrogation blocks before he was transported to Guantanamo, he says he “almost died”.

“You can’t sleep, hung upside down. Under torture you will admit to anything – but the big problem was giving them details [because I didn’t know any]. That means they intensify the torture – persecution, sexual assault, electrocution, waterboarding, drowning, you name it.”

Around the same time, Moazzam Begg was at his home in Pakistan when he was taken away by CIA and local agents. Begg, born in Birmingham, England, would be held for three years between 2002-2005 without charge.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams that would be somewhere that I would end up,” he says. “But I had a sense, because I’d spoken with some of my friends in the UK and they told me that MI5 had approached them and asked about where I could be.” It was 1998 when an MI5 agent first paid a visit to his house.

Begg was accused of al-Qaeda membership and of funding the organisation’s training camps, which he denied, insisting he had only provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s. He has denied any involvement in terrorist activity.

Begg was taken to Guantanamo on a 36-hour journey via Turkey, with his head in a hood, his hands tied behind his back and his legs shacked “with guns pointing at me”. On four or five occasions, a British voice would ask him questions. Beside the CIA, he realised it was the same British agent from all those years ago.

Life inside Guantanamo

In cells of around eight feet by six, Begg, Adayfi and the other detainees slept on metal bunk beds. Cockroaches crawled along the walls. Fluorescent lights would sometimes beam for 24 hours a day. A metal toilet and basin made up the room. Some would use the floor to pray five times a day – except that was likely to single them out to the guards. There were moments of escape, with a football – but that was not day-to-day life.

One particular guard in Camp Delta had a handkerchief of a US flag, which he would use to cover his face. The detainees believed he would perform the gesture when he knew he was committing what the US considered “enhanced interrogation techniques” – widely recognised by human rights organisations as torture. Official government policy has since banned these practices and denies using torture, despite ongoing allegations of their continued use.

Prisoners could be kept for days at a time in a coffin-sized box, or slammed against a concrete wall. According to eye-witness accounts from multiple former detainees and former staff members, as well as human rights groups including Amnesty and the Centre for the Victims of Torture, they were deprived of sleep for days at a time, hung naked by a chain from the roof.

“The guards, they could do whatever to you. Even if they killed you it doesn’t matter,” says Adayfi. By the time he arrived at Guantanamo, he already had “a lot of broken stuff in my head, broken skull, broken ribs, lost some of my memory and my vision” from the interrogation sessions. He was no longer Mansoor Adayfi – he had become Prisoner 441.

There was sexual violence, extreme flogging and beatings. Detainees would be pinned down, with headphones and duct tape pinned to their ears, and forced to listen to deafening music. The Quran was torn in front of them. Many were shackled to tables, sprayed with freezing gas, while in the next room guards would threaten detainees with a power drill.

“The way the US got around it,” explains Begg, “is that they got US attorneys to argue that unless it’s organ failure, severe physical impairment or death, it’s not torture. That allowed them to do things like waterboarding, a medieval torture technique used in the Spanish Inquisition.

“They can, as they did to me, subject you to the sound of a woman’s screams that you’re led to believe is your wife and children being tortured in the next room. If anybody had done that to an American citizen, they would be calling for crimes against humanity.”

Guantanamo became a “battle lab” for techniques which would soon be exported to Abu Grahib, the notorious Iraqi prison which faced its own torture scandal in 2004. Around two dozen of the men held in Guantanamo arrived as children – Adayfi maintains he saw a baby in captivity.

It was not possible to know whether it was day or night, with no windows, calendars or access to the outside world. English speakers, who understood what the guards were saying and could pass on messages to other detainees, risked ending up in solitary confinement.

Begg himself spent time in solitary, he believes, because of what he had seen shortly after his capture. At Bagram, in Afghanistan, two men, Mullah Habibullah and Dilawar, were beaten to death by US soldiers – military coroners ruled them to be homicides.

“I was actually a witness to the murder,” says Begg. “And I had made it very clear to the authorities that no matter what I do, I’ll make sure that everyone knows you carried out murder of unarmed, innocent prisoners.”

‘Footballs would burst on the barbed wire’

Resistance in Guantanamo took many forms. Prisoners, including Adayfi, began a series of hunger strikes to “fight back”. The Government would not consider them hunger strikes – “they called it non-religious fasting”. Adayfi says he was then force-fed.

Guards would use the concept of “compliant” and “non-compliant” prisoners to restrict benefits like playing football. A $1m football pitch, supposedly a means of broadcasting humane treatment of the prisoners, prompted controversy across the US. “Why do they need to play soccer?” demanded Donald Trump in his 2015 Presidential campaign.

The reality, the detainees say, was very different.

“They would take 30 to 40 detainees, give them white uniforms and a soccer ball,” says Adayfi. “They would bring a media delegation [to say], ‘look how we treat them’. In the cages, they create a system of levels – if you are level one, you get to go to the small cage and there is a soccer ball. There will be two people to play against each other, they would maybe get a water bottle and people play.

“They say ‘we give them a ball in a cage in Guantanamo’. What’s humanity supposed to do in a cage that’s like two metres and two metres, even smaller?

In Camp Six, a pitch was opened in 2011, with goalposts erected at each end.

“The lawyers used to bring in the balls, but once the ball hit the barbed wire, they’d burst. When they say we have books, we have TVs, [they try to make it sound like] we have some kind of easy life. Those military guys, they believe you should suffer.”

The pitch was largely dust and gravel, the goals the walls of a shipping container. One guard told Adayfi: “It’s my job to keep you alive, but I’m not happy to see you as a human being.”

When the World Cup began in South Africa in 2010, for the first time Adayfi watched the games on TV inside Guantanamo.

“Your brain starts constructing a new you, a new life, a new memories, a new relationship, a new emotion,” he adds. “The more you stay, the more you are distanced from your previous life. So, in the detention people try to survive. People wanted to watch the World Cup to see what’s going on in the world. People could see the flags.”

Before Begg was released in 2005, there was only a “recreation yard”, where detainees were given 15 minutes to walk. “If you’re lucky, you’d get a ball to kick around – and after 15 minutes you’re back in,” he recalls.

“When I came in for the first year, it was literally 15 minutes twice a week.” Once a new commander took charge of Guantanamo, exercise increased to one hour a day.

“There were different camps where there was communal living, people could play football, watch television, play chess, but I experienced none of that.”

Forever Prisoners

Today, of the 15 men being held in Guantanamo, some have been cleared for release. Others are considered unfit to stand trial, or the evidence against them has been obtained through torture.

Abu Zubaydah is a 55-year-old Palestinian detained in Camp Seven for 24 years without charge. He has been kept “incommunicado” with the outside world. In 2018, a Parliamentary Report found UK intelligence agencies had sent questions to be put to him knowing they would be used during torture. He was compensated by the British government but as a “forever prisoner”, he is one of a category with no prospect of release.

The “forever prisoners”, Begg explains, are those “they say, too innocent to charge, too dangerous to release. That’s a new category of law the Americans have created”.

Barack Obama first promised to close Guantanamo in 2008. The Trump administration has instead proposed expanding it to “load it up with bad dudes”, including a new camp for migrants. Because of the base’s location, it sits outside the jurisdiction of ordinary US law and the Geneva Convention’s Article Three, prohibiting torture.

In 2014, the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that torture methods used at Guantanamo were brutal, ineffective and more widespread than had previously been disclosed. The report was contested by CIA officials.

Before their deployment, guards were often taken to Ground Zero in New York, the site of the 9/11 attacks. In the midst of the 4 July Independence Day celebrations, I visited the site to find numerous military personnel dotted around the waterfall-pools commemorating the victims. They were taken there in the early years of the “War on Terror” to better understand their work.

‘Boycott the World Cup for humanity’

Nobody has ever been found guilty of the alleged human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay. One detainee, Zahir Hamdoun, summed up his detention so: “I have become a body without a soul… I rather belong to another world, a world that is buried in a grave called Guantanamo.”

Now, as the US takes centre-stage at this World Cup, Adayfi urges fans around the globe to boycott the tournament. It is “the least we can do to stand for our humanity, to bring a voice to the victims.

“Guantanamo is one of the biggest crimes of the 21st century. Unfortunately people don’t look at it because it was done by the United States. This is a big hypocrisy.”

Inside the cages was Guantanamo’s own global community, with 15 nationalities, more than 20 languages spoken. Yet those who left were never given any rehabilitation or integration programmes.

“People think when you leave detention, you’re free,” says Adayfi. “No, you’re not free.

“You have to go through rigorous surveillance. People live with the PTSD, mental, psychological, physical problems, people released in a wheelchair with broken backs. The torture can never stop.

“Now you face the reality. You cannot get a job or a bank account, you can’t get married, you can’t travel… because the US said you are a bad person, you’re a terrorist.”

Some detainees never made it out of the camp. On 10 June 2006, three died by hanging, officially designated as suicides. Human rights groups continue to query the verdicts. Adayfi says that when the bodies of the three men, Mani al-Utaybi (30), Yasser al-Zahrani (21), Ali Abdullah Ahmed (37), were sent to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, “they found there were signs of torture, broken teeth” in the autopsies.

Others were sent to Assad’s regime in Syria. “The prisons there make Guantanamo look like a holiday camp,” Begg says. “I’ve visited them, spoken to multiple prisoners, trying to locate some of them which we believe are buried in mass graves. These are the kinds of people that the US and Britain were working alongside, knowing they would do things the Americans wouldn’t consider.”

There is a Survivors’ Fund for those trying to rebuild their lives after release from Guantanamo – but they will never be given an explanation of why they were captured or held. “There is no legal process that actually exonerates you,” says Begg.

“It’s not uncommon for me to come across guys who can’t travel, can’t get a job, can’t live a normal functional life because they were once held in Guantanamo without charges.

“They did it because they could. And there was no way to stop them.”

After 25 years, the soft power of the US remains undimmed. The World Cup has attracted 1.2 million visitors to the country. The football itself has been spectacular, divisive, and intensely political. In that climate, Guantanamo’s opponents are still fighting for its remaining detainees to be remembered.

“Twenty-five years of illegal detention,” says Adayfi. He will “never forgive” what happened to him in Guantanamo.

“There is no justification. And there is no justice.”

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KENNESAW, GEORGIA – The very start of this World Cup trip, and the grand idea to find out whether and how hosting the World Cup resonated in smalltown USA, did not go well. I landed in Seattle, a large World Cup host city, and sidled up to the desk to pick up my hire car, waiting in line with a group of Belgium supporters who were touring before their first group game in the city.

Not only did the kind gent at the desk not know that a World Cup was coming, he had no idea which sport it involved when prompted by a colleague (there was bunting in the terminal building, but not at car hire). Nothing like really cutting through your search for a World Cup buzz.

This always promised to be a World Cup of host cities. I am attending matches in nine of the US’s 11 – I left Seattle too soon and the Miami semi-final was just too far south for the car. In each of the six cities I have visited so far, I’ve found an unshakeable major tournament identity that has surpassed my expectations.

All the usual hallmarks are there: electronic road signs warning of soccer traffic, the bars with bunting and promises of watch parties and drinks deals. The walking, talking Epcot-ification of downtowns with umpteen different nations represented by home or away shirts. This is normal. This is how it always is.

And the vast hordes of travelling supporters have been aided by something I’ve not experienced before: locals choosing a team for each match and offering their dedicated support, if only for one day. That doesn’t feel twee – it’s uplifting.

The difference with the US, and the element of the tournament and its politics that fascinated me just as much, is the vast expanse in between those cities. In Qatar in 2022, the two stadiums furthest apart were separated by a 48-minute drive, give or take traffic. This is basically the opposite. I wanted to find the World Cup ghost towns.

They are everywhere and I have seen only a fraction and a snapshot. In Grants Pass, Oregon, I went to a quiz in a bar where one of the questions asked for the identity of the US’s first opponent and almost nobody guessed Paraguay. In Ottawa, Kansas, a lovely lady named Sam – almost all of my conversation comes at the motel buffet breakfast – said her nephew was “probably” into soccer but had no concept of the tournament itself.

In Guthrie, Oklahoma, I spoke with Liam and Jennifer – a young couple who had six young children and a puppy with them. As a childless man who got a migraine just by thinking about the noise in that minivan, it was some surprise when they seemed to think I was the unusual one for travelling the US to watch soccer. Maybe they had a point.

In Pleasant View, Tennessee, the only real show in town was selling fireworks for a special 4 July celebration marking the USA’s 250th birthday.

A Canada game was on the television in a barbecue restaurant, but I was very much the only interested customer. When I asked the barman if he’d had much interest, he laughed (and I won’t attempt the drawl): “We have it on, but we have to have something on.”

This information will draw rolled eyes in some quarters – typical Americans not caring about football and thus unworthy of hosting the World Cup. Predictable insularity to the point of national solipsism. And yes, there is plenty of that about.

You are never more than 10 miles on a freeway from seeing an American flag large enough to cover an office building fluttering on a 100ft pole. That’s just how they roll, I’m afraid.

Have reached Columbus, Texas. Great smalltown Americana. And a Scotland away shirt. pic.twitter.com/U9UGVvMx8E

— Daniel Storey (@danielstorey85) June 19, 2026

It’s also an absolutely forgivable scenario to not care – or not even know – about a tournament that has little to no impact upon your life. Lots of Americans rarely leave their state, life in smalltown USA can indeed feel parochial and a little claustrophobic and football tournaments don’t come to your backyard. The US has 11 host stadiums in an area the size of continental Europe and seven of them are close to the east or west coast.

My favourite fact is this (and I learned it in the state itself): Kentucky doesn’t just not have a World Cup stadium, but only one of the seven states it borders has a World Cup stadium too. That state is Missouri, which shares a 60-mile border with Kentucky. And here’s the kicker: that 60 miles does not include a road crossing. I met a guy named Paul in a diner in Bowling Green, not too far from that wild border, who wasn’t bothered about the World Cup. I’d have had a job convincing of its relevance to him.

Even state secularity is overplayed. I spent a day and night in El Paso, Texas and went to a winghouse inside converted train carriages. It is true that there were a group of Panamanians watching their match against Ghana (and within the immigrant experience is where the World Cup interest really shines), but I also sat at the bar next to a couple who inquired what I was doing in the US.

When I asked them if they had considered going to a game at either of the Texas stadiums (Houston and Dallas), the guy gently pointed out that the closest of the two was a round trip of 1,270 miles. Which is further than driving from Munich to Istanbul.

There have been towns where I’ve struggled to even find the World Cup matches on, but then these are often interstate stop-offs where fast food joints and motels are the usual fare and most local places shut early.

Anthonino's in The Hill, St. Louis. Where they have a mural on the outside to the USA beating England in the 1950 World Cup pic.twitter.com/z0eFt7qKze

— Daniel Storey (@danielstorey85) June 26, 2026

The main staple – in Williams, Waco, Columbus, Warrensburg and Gainesville, small towns dotted across the south – are bars that have sport on TV because they always do. Often this is white noise to most of the clientele, but the matches are shown because they fight only with baseball and horse racing. In the evening you might get the sound turned up louder, but very rarely does the World Cup win that audio tussle.

And yes, to answer the obvious accusation, most Americans do prefer other sports. This is a sport-obsessed country, it’s just that they have so much choice and so much of that choice is brought closer to their own world.

Let me explain, using the El Paso example again. The nearest MLS club to El Paso is Austin FC, whose crowds are 20,000 and made up largely of locals. Austin to El Paso and back is an 18-hour drive. You simply aren’t going to interact with the sport in the same way as Europeans do.

What El Paso does have is UTEP and their college football team, whose Sun Bowl stadium has a capacity of 52,000. This is an unfair fight and pretending otherwise is foolhardy. This same scenario plays out across smalltown USA. You see more outward support – shirts, signage, car stickers – for high school football teams than anything to do with soccer.

The one exception to this rule, particularly in the south but it survives elsewhere too, is the Mexico shirt. I have seen perhaps 20-30 men’s national team – or USMNT as it likes to brand itself –shirts in the wild. I have seen 2,000-3,000 Mexico shirts. The white away kit is the accessory of this World Cup and the Mexican population in the US.

As I make these mini-judgements on an entire country, I continue to remind myself how much of this is projection. For all the criticism of the US’s interest in men’s soccer (and it’s both clearly growing, clearly led by the immigrant population and clearly led by interest in European leagues), is that unusual? If you had driven into the town of Pudozh in Karelia, Russia in June 2018 and chatted up locals with talk of Harry Maguire and the England lovetrain corner routine, would anyone have cared? I think not.

There’s another theory, and it came from Brian, one of my many new acquaintances. We began chatting at breakfast in Chesterfield, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri, and I asked him why the fervent support for the US national team appeared to come mainly from larger cities. His explanation was illuminating. Americans are a pretty patriotic bunch as a rule, but sport tends to localise loyalty.

Soccer, and its World Cup, is the exception. American football has no established World Cup – the NFL is enough. Baseball has the World Classic and basketball the Fiba World Cup and Olympics, but neither are the pinnacle of the sport – MLB and NBA are all you need. According to Brian, smalltown Americans just aren’t used to caring about global sporting events because they simply don’t need them.

He doesn’t mean that as criticism. In the major cities, support was fervent. Elsewhere, I found pockets of intense excitement, but typically when meeting those who call the US home now but have footballing ties to hereditary nations.

The support grew as the US national team continued to impress – success is always the easiest driver of legacy. The marketing machine is rolling: Pulisic, Robinson, Adams and McKennie are on every other advert that doesn’t have David Beckham in it. It will also take time and in great swathes of the country it may never happen – it’s OK to admit that.

On the Road USA

Join Daniel Storey on his 7,200-mile odyssey across the US to tell the stories of a World Cup like no other.

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There is a line in Alan Sillitoe’s story “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” about the silence of an early morning: “Everything’s dead, but good, because it’s dead before coming alive, not dead after coming alive.”

That’s how I feel about those countless small towns I’ve visited where I’ve heard brief references to the World Cup: a group game that catches a half-interested eye, stickers for sale in a provincial store, a kid in a Netherlands shirt in the middle of halfway to nowhere that makes you double take.

These are not World Cup ghost towns because something died, but because it didn’t come alive yet. One day it might. Football usually finds a way.

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