World Cup 2026: Cape Verde continue remarkable story; Messi, Mbappé and Haaland return – live

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Spain are an entirely different proposition with Lamine Yamal, aren’t they? Apologies if that sounds unacceptably basic, it is, but sometimes, basic is what we need. He gives them width, edge, pace, invention – and his teammates the confidence they have him so anything is possible.

But hatred of the US as a single entity is also a confusing idea, albeit one that fits a certain monotheistic world view, where there can only be devils and angels. It involves demonising as a single failed entity a hugely diverse and varied nation with elements of every kind of people and every kind of culture, the great human experiment, with all its freedoms and flaws; and doing so based on the actions and pronouncements of a few governing Maga Republicans.

If America has become this single thing in so many people’s minds, it is perhaps because this is the way we experience things now. Everything is flattened, foreshortened, turned into sound and noise. Never underestimate the effect of the hive mind, that constant third space we carry around with us. This World Cup is the first global event to take place so deep inside that online space, experienced in peeled-eyeball detail through a screen as a set of images and shouted ideas

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