OFFSIDE | World Cup 2026: Canadian joy, Brazilian anxiety, and Nike’s unofficial win | Football News

In The Matrix, Morpheus asks Neo: “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” One has felt like that while vacillating between the states of reality and dreams while watching this World Cup, where one’s circadian rhythm has been sacrificed at the altar of the footballing gods so an organisation which has somehow become the custodian of the Beautiful Game gets even closer to Mammon while taking fans for a ride.Sleeping woes and laments about post-capitalism aside, Day 8 of the World Cup saw some remarkable football, even if none of the global superstars were on display.In the last few World Cups, barring Brazil, hosts have been so poor at the game they are hosting that one has wondered why they were given the right to host the tournament. Not this time, where all three teams co-hosting the World Cup have come out of the gates racing.Across the globe, the stereotype of Canada, when seen through an American lens, is that it’s a country inhabited by extremely polite people with the exception of Wolverine. But Canadians, when push comes to shove, can put up a mean face, as Mark Carney showed Donald Trump. And he was there to witness the Canadian national team decimate Qatar 6-0. Jonathan David scored a hat-trick, becoming the first man to score a hat-trick for a host nation since Geoff Hurst in 1966.Qatar lost two men to red cards, and the only dark cloud was Ismael Koné’s injury. Canada managed numerous firsts: scoring more than one goal in a World Cup match, winning their first World Cup game, and almost formalising their qualification to the Round of 32. The scoreline doesn’t even flatter the hosts, who had 32 shots on target and dominated every aspect of the game. The scariest bit is they managed to do all this without their talisman, Alphonso Davies.For some reason, whenever one thinks of Mexico, one thinks of Santiago Muñez, the protagonist from Goal!, which was a rather popular football movie, though it never did reach the cult-classic status of its Hindi counterpart starring John Abraham and Arshad Warsi, which really doesn’t make the case for Indian representation in British football.These days, though, football is a lot bigger in North America thanks in part to Ted Lasso and Lionel Messi, but Mexico is a nation that has always been more football-mad compared to its neighbours. No wonder the fans booed the team at half-time for their pedestrian football and 0.5 xG, and it would have been a draw if it hadn’t been for Mexican keeper Raúl Rangel’s miracle triple-save that denied South Korea.Meanwhile, Switzerland handed Bosnia and Herzegovina a harsh lesson, though all goals came after 75 minutes in the clash which saw the latter turn to their vintage striker Edin Džeko for inspiration. But it was Swiss super-subs who made the difference after coming on. Meanwhile, Czechia and South Africa played out a boring 1-1 draw that was deemed the “worst match of the World Cup” so far.But today’s matches will be tantalising for neutrals. We have two proud sporting nations, co-hosts USA and Australia, facing off, and there’s an added strain to the relationship thanks to pundit Mike Grella’s comment that the match would be a good ‘layup,’ which has really angered the Aussies down under and reminded folks of Gary Hall Jr. saying that the US swimming team would smash the Aussies like guitars at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, which he admitted was his biased view. Yet in popular memory, the biased bit is completely forgotten, and when the Aussie relay team beat the Americans, their air guitar celebration became part of Aussie-US sporting history.Both teams look good, but Grella’s comment has already riled up the Australians, who are never more dangerous than when under the cosh. Ask the English. Stuart Broad famously said before the Ashes 2025: “It’s actually not an opinion, it’s a fact: it’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won, and it’s the best English team since 2010.” The Aussies took a 3-0 lead and eventually won 4-1, and time will tell if the Americans avoid the fate of their English cousins in a different sport.In another game, Scotland take on Morocco, the 2022 semi-finalists. While the Tartan Army has won the hearts and minds of Americans for their good behaviour and capacity for drinking while not being a nuisance, all eyes will be on Scott McTominay, but the smart money is on Morocco, who held Brazil to a 1-1 draw and look even more threatening than last time.Meanwhile, Brazil face Haiti and will hope to make up for lost time after their draw left fans around the world sad. Carlo Ancelotti has admitted that the weight of the shirt might have affected his players in the first half against Morocco. Neymar Jr., meanwhile, will not travel with the squad for the Haiti game and will instead be focusing on recovery, making many question if Ancelotti’s gamble to bring back the ageing superstar was wrong.And finally, Paraguay face off against Turkey in a must-win game and will hope to recover from their pasting by Team USA.

Meanwhile, off-the-field, while the Japanese men have been praised for cleaning up after themselves, several social media users from Japan have called out the “double standards” of men cleaning up when the camera is on them but not doing so at home, leaving one user to comment: “Everyone wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom do the dishes.”And finally, let’s look at the real battle on hand: Nike vs. Adidas. Between the two of them, the two sporting giants sponsor 26 of the 48 kits, but it’s Adidas which is the official sponsor of the World Cup, while it’s Nike which is grabbing the eyeballs. But before we explain, let’s take a walk down memory lane.The year was 1996 and the Cricket World Cup was being held in India, in which Coca-Cola outbid Pepsi to win the official sponsorship. So Pepsi came up with a slogan that lives in our minds rent-free even today: Nothing Official About It.“Officially, cricket is played in whites at a leisurely pace. The official players are gentlemen of restraint who have to drink the official drink.”And while Adidas might be the official sponsor and has put out a brilliant ad titled Backyard Legends, it’s Nike’s Rip up the Script that is ruling the internet with 76 million views on YouTube compared to Adidas’ 7 million. Clearly, sometimes it pays more to be unofficial than official.