For various yet obvious reasons, I’m yet to feel any real enthusiasm about this World Cup as a whole. FIFA stinks. The principal host country is appalling. The bloated format is dreadful. Then you’re into unsociable kickoff times, stifling weather conditions, Sam Matterface. The list goes on and on. I just don’t have the same keen-eyed desire to lap up every last drop of the action in the way I used to.

It’s not just external factors. Non-footballing commitments such as work and parenting take up most of my free time, so by the time the kitchen is tidied up after dinner, it’s usually about 9pm and I have about 30-60 minutes of free time before dragging myself off to bed. That’s at most one hour of free time a day, and whilst I’m extremely grateful for its existence at all, it means I’ve become a lot more choosy about what I do with it. Assuming you even feel like watching TV, do you want subject your significant other to Norway vs Senegal? Sure, it was a fun game with lots of goals, but that’s beside the point. There’s perilously few situations I’m going to spend my leisure time on if it involves listening to Guy Mowbray commentating on anything (sorry, Gladiators).

Having said all that, it’s been quite enjoyable catching up on the highlights over the course of breakfast and/or the morning commute. I haven’t felt anything like the immersion of Major Tournaments past, but then that’s probably true of most people doing parenting or with more demanding life schedules. For me, this is the Tournament of Highlights. And that’s fine. My attention span is wrecked as anyone’s in the year 2026, and whilst I will always love sitting down to really engage with 90 minutes of football, it feels like a nice way of staying in touch with everything.

Of course, the one exception to all this was England vs Croatia. The first half gave me the sinking feeling that I was once again watching Arsenal trying to stodge their way to the title. Not only that, it felt like it was the “Major Tournament” version of England we’ve been used to seeing since, well, forever. No rhythm to the play, no attacking plan, just sit in and wait for a spark of genius or a set piece. Luckily Tuchel managed to SPENGE it out of them at half time and it felt like it was England playing the way they “should” have been for the last 10 years, all zippy passing and fluid attacking intent. It was beautiful and liberating to watch, and it may yet prove to be our finest hour, even as I write this on the day of England’s 2nd group game.

Rather than igniting my passion for the tournament as a whole, though, I don’t think I bothered watching any other matches or even highlights for the next 2 days. The emotional trauma of re-living Arsenal’s crawl to the title in the first half was quickly forgotten, yet I still felt like I couldn’t be arsed. In some ways, it’s the World Cup you dream of – big names scoring bags of goals, along with interesting match-ups you wouldn’t normally get to see. From a purely footballing perspective, what’s not to love?

But I’m just not there at the moment. As I’ve got older, the month of June has become more and more difficult for me in terms of mental health, and so the things I would usually enjoy don’t resonate as much. More broadly, I’m just finding I’m not that bothered about football in general anymore, and that’s with Arsenal winning the league this season. From my narrow vista on the few places I visit online, this is not uncommon among men around the same age as me. There’s a disconnect in the way modern football is presented and described – “the GREATEST and MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER” – compared to the way it makes me feel when I watch it. Like generative AI, it may sort of look authentic around the edges, but what’s inside is a hollowed out sloppy mess.

My somewhat muted interest in this year’s World Cup has however thrown up some questions.

• Do you think Messi’s teammates hate Messi as much as Cristiano Ronaldo’s teammates hate Cristiano Ronaldo?
• Why can’t England have a player with the surname “Canobbio”?
• How often do you think Guy Mowbray watches YouTube compilations of Guy Mowbray commentary per day? 5-10? >10?
• Is Sam Matterface being the voice of Google Gemini adverts the most Unholy Alliance of Fucking Awful Things that has ever existed?
• Why is there a proliferation of pundits/co-commentators calling it the “football” instead of the “ball”?
• Has Stephen Warnock been studying Jim Beglin’s PES co-commentary?

Anyway. It’s England vs Ghana later and I’m feeling…alright..