America 2026: A World Cup podcast

Former footballer, manager and full-time raconteur, Roddy Collins has been many things to Irish football.

He's also the star of The Rodfather, his memoir written with our own Paul Howard.

To celebrate World Cup final day, Paul and Roddy take the chance to revisit the tournaments, players and moments that changed their footballing lives. 

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Lionel Messi’s international football career wasn’t always a litany of heroic victories and dressing room anthems. For most of his time in sky blue and white he looked more likely to go down as a busted flush. An iconic club player who left his home too young and therefore severed the connection he could have had to his national team. 

The wheel has well and truly turned and he now finds himself just one game aw...

England led midway through the second half of last night's World Cup semi-final in Atlanta. Thomas Tuchel, seemingly satisfied with his evening's work, made the fatal error of hauling off his attacking options to cram the box with central defenders. In doing so, they handed Argentina the lion's share of possession with Leo Messi still prowling the pitch. You tend to get exactly what you deserve in these situations and England were ...

Spain haven't lost a competitive game since Scotland beat them in March 2023. Tonight's win leaves them just a single match from breaking Italy's record unbeaten run of 38 games. Oh, and from lifting a World Cup trophy too, of course.

In the end, Spain's structure and patience proved far too much for France. They were ruthless in midfield, picking apart the soft spots in the French line-up and doing the unglamorous things w...

England are through to the World Cup semi-finals, and still nobody can say quite what they're good at, or what they're trying to do exactly. Now that Jude Bellingham has established himself as the squad's main man, will his clashes with Thomas Tuchel and his coaching staff prove England's undoing? Or is it precisely the kind of kinetic charge that carries a side all the way?

Miguel Delaney has the inside track, having shadowed E...

France thumped Morocco with relative ease last night, laying bare just how wide the gulf still yawns between the plucky underdog and the ruling classes of world football.

Ken Early joins us from Boston for our weekly check-in, sharing his reflections on the tournament as the endgame comes into view. He also gives his take on the zealous furore engulfing Brazilian media since the seleção's exit.

Closer to home, Malachy Clerkin...

Yet another moment, yet another highlight reel, yet another memory for us all - courtesy of Leo Messi's remarkable football career.

Egypt’s two-goal lead should have been more, but in the end they were made to bow to the sheer weight of inevitability. Was it fate alone at work here? Or was there a human thumb pressing on the scales?

After FIFA's litany of missteps this week, perceived contentious calls are more up for d...

The American Dream is over. The United States, perhaps laden down with the sheer weight of the swirling situation, limped to a 4-1 defeat in Seattle. A result which ends their campaign and potentially the administration’s interest along with it. For all the strings pulled to drag Folarin Balogun back onto the pitch, their exit was a quiet, deflating end to the loudest week of the World Cup so far.

Paul Howard and Malachy C...

There was a real expectation heading into this tournament that off-field issues would wreak havoc on World Cup 2026. It's had its moments, but nothing has come close to the news of the past couple of days.

FIFA has rescinded the red-card suspension of USA star striker Folarin Balogun, clearing him to face Belgium tonight. They did so, primarily, at the request of President Donald Trump. The fallout has been messy: bodies like UE...

"We'll sell you the whole seat, but you'll only need the edge of it."

Fridays tend to run giddy on the America 2026 podcast but make no mistake, this World Cup is barrelling into the serious business end now.

Malachy Clerkin is in studio to keep an increasingly delirious Paul Howard company. Kevin Kilbane joins us from Canada, where the tournament's stay is drawing to a close. Though not without leaving an enduring mark on th...

‘It looks altogether brighter’ echoed the immortal words of the BBC commentary mere moments before Brian Cipenga smashed one past Pickford at the near post to hand DR Congo an early lead.

Congo fought valiantly, but twice they couldn't deny Harry Kane, who now has a high-altitude clash with Mexico at the Azteca to look forward to this Sunday.

Gavin Cooney and Paul Howard are in studio to round up the last couple o...

The old world is fading, and the new one struggles to be born. There was a time when it seemed a foregone conclusion that the likes of Germany and the Netherlands would loom large at the business end of any World Cup, grinding out wins with efficient, controlled football. Last night, neither looked anything close to it. Germany crashed out to Paraguay, the Dutch to Morocco, both on penalties.

Killian Sundermann - comedian, podca...

Jesse Marsch's team stand as Canadian heroes to rank alongside Céline Dion, Justin Bieber and Tim Horton after last night's win over South Africa in Los Angeles - the nation's first-ever World Cup knockout victory, and perhaps the dawn of a brave new world for Canadian soccer.

The game itself, though, was… rather less dramatic. Gavin Cooney and Malachy Clerkin join Paul Howard in studio to pick back over a mixed bag of a ...

To everything there is a season. That’s a lesson Scotland will surely have to learn if the football gods grant them another crack at this World Cup in the knockouts. Brazil were only too happy to feast on a calamitous defensive set-up, banging in three past a back line that flatly refused to ‘just knock it’.

Paul Howard checks in with correspondents across North America, starting with Kevin Kilbane in Vancouver...

It may not have been a catastrophe of a draw for England in Boston last night, but they’re following previous World Cup patterns and maybe that should be worrying enough for Thomas Tuchel.

Howard, Cooney and Clerkin are back in The Irish Times studio to suss out where England’s Premier League 25/26 approach went wrong for them last night, if this really affects anything about the tournament and why we’re waitin...

Forty years to the day since Diego Maradona's unforgettable brace against England at Mexico '86, three of the defining stars of the 2026 World Cup produced doubles of their own. Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé and Erling Haaland each struck twice in a remarkable night that invited comparisons with the tournament's most enduring icon. Paying tribute to Maradona in some moments, and perhaps surpassing him in others.

Paul Howard is joi...

Kevin Kilbane, the self described Dunphy of Canadian Television, joins us from Vancouver after the Sunday night games, along with Gavin Cooney in studio. Paul Howard has continued his Herculean effort to watch every single group stage game and reports back on a packed weekend of World Cup action. 

Favourites Spain look to be warming up but questions linger over Lamine Yamal’s fitness. Co-hosts Mexico and the USA keep ...

Canada notched their first ever World Cup victory after stomping Qatar 6-0 in Vancouver last night. Not everyone loved the wild celebrations on the touchline and after the whistle but is it all actually playing right into coach Marsch's plans for global domination?

Kevin Kilbane was at the game in Vancouver on televisual duties, we get his thoughts on what he makes of the co-hosts, the potential fallout of Ismaël Koné’s ho...

Thomas Tuchel complained that he "couldn't see his team" during the anthems in Dallas last night. Little did he know just how much would be read into that remark as the evening wore on.

On paper, a 4-2 win over an old bogey side looks like the perfect way to open a World Cup. Add in the fact that this is an England team who have brushed aside everyone in their path en route to the tournament, and the mood should be euphoric. So ...