Blain’s Morning Porridge June 12th, 2026 – Let the Games Begin – Love the World Cup
“And we’ll really shake em up when we win the World Cup!”
What’s not to like about the World Cup? Forget the noise, forget the rancour – and celebrate the greatest festival of visceral tribal sport on the planet. Life is not about the money in your wallet, or the price of your stocks – but the laughs you laugh, the sighs you sigh when the penalty is missed, the cheers that cheer when the goal is scored, and the memories in the treasury of your heart!
Let the Games begin! How will it go?
Even though I am not the world’s most dedicated Football fan, I have greatly enjoyed the World Cup. Not so much the Footie which can be a tad boring to my mind – but the whole atmosphere around the beautiful game. Give me any pub in London when England is playing… and there is nothing quite like it. I will blare out Sweet Caroline with the worst of them!
When I first started thinking about penning a Morning Porridge about the World Cup, my first thoughts were to write a tirade about Trump playing Bread and Circuses – anything to distract American Voters for the mire of the Iran war, inflation rising 75% (2.8% to 4.2%) since the start of the war, and the ongoing whiff of something rotten around connections to Epstein. (There is a superb article in the NYT this week: Inside the White House Freakout Over the Epstein Files.) It is juicy, oh so juicy – but do not let it distract you from the Footie.
But, watching the lead up to the opening game last night… No. It was just too good. I will not do a hatchet job on the World Cup. Infantino and Trump will get what they deserve. What the World deserves is a fantastic celebration of Football and everything that goes with it.
Let America, Mexico and Canada host their party and wish them the joy of it. Let the Football speak. Let it heal and let’s enjoy it for what it is. The chance to celebrate that we are tribal; promising to support our country to the bitter end of the party, party, party and wake up with a raging hangover the next morning! The sheer joy of belonging!
Former Scotland player and footie pundit Ally McCoist’s introduction from the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City, (his accent utterly incomprehensible to my Welsh Wife), was simply brilliant last night – he was absolutely caught up in the moment describing every shot at goal by the giants of the game as if they had scored that afternoon, not decades ago!
That is part of the joy of the beautiful game.
(Personally, I prefer Rugby, famously a thug’s game played by gentlemen, while Football is a gentleman’s game played by thugs!)
Will this World Cup match the joy of previous competitions? I suspect so! Forget the noise about ticket prices, hotel and travel. Apparently, it hasn’t stopped my countrymen travelling to get a rare glimpse of Scotland at a World Cup. Scotland games are among the most expensive, with very few tickets available on FIFA’s rip-the-punters-off site.
I suspect it will all go swimmingly well. There will be plenty of fans at the matches. They might not be screaming Flower of Scotland, Three Lions or whatever the other nations pass off as musical accompaniment, but they will be there. Mexicans are fanatical fans (as we saw last night!) Even though most Americans foolishly think Football is called Soccer and don’t have a clue – they are generally nice people (when not seized by the Trump mind-control virus) and will do their best to join in and enjoy it. I’ll be interested to know what the Canadians think – probably wondering where the sticks are to beat the other side with?
Although it’s reckoned a World Cup win (or even reaching the final stages) will create a domestic boom in successful nations, and it’s said a UK government lost an election when England crashed out in the 1970 quarter finals… Instead of writing about the economic and market implications of what a World Cup might be this morning, let me ask all readers what World Cups mean to them…
I have many standout lifetime moments from World Cups.
I spent June 1998 scrabbling round France to watch Scotland crash out of the first round. At one point in Paris, I was thinking we might even draw against Brazil in the opening game (we nearly did), and my wife’s gales of laughter when I got back home from Bordeaux shirtless but wearing a Viking Helmet after our infamous 1-1 win over Norway!
My dad told the story of 4-year-old Billy demanding to watch England in the 1966 World Cup Final on our tiny Black and White TV – but then fell asleep. I very clearly remember collecting Esso Coins for 1970 Mexico World Cup, and singing “Back Home”, even though Scotland hadn’t qualified. 1974 we watched Scotland crash out in Germany on a neighbour’s colour TV (drawing Brazil). In 1978 the whole Nation was figuratively marching through Argentina as Ally’s Tartan Army – and the greatest goal in galactic history – Archie Gemmill vs Holland… But we still crashed out in the first round. I guess I was too busy chasing girls for the next few years to remember much about subsequent World Cups – until France ’98.
What I do remember was my English Sixth Year Studies Exam (a pre-university qualification a bit above an English A-Level). The task was to critique a newspaper opinion piece written just before Scotland went to the 1974 World Cup – it was about the unshakable belief of the Fans that Scotland would win and how fantastic we were. The article imagined what might happen if the impossibly self-confident Scots were to actually win! I reckoned it would make us globally unbearable. It was then I came to the conclusion Scots are very balanced people – we have chips on both shoulders. We’re angry because we’re treated like a small nation most folk don’t acknowledge, and we’re angry because we are a small nation most folk don’t acknowledge. We live with it. Footie is a release valve.
I’ve often thought about that article – Scots are the greatest people on Earth, and the fact we sometimes get beaten doesn’t diminish that. Oh, but when we win – ask any English Rugby Fan how unbearable we can be.
After watching Scotland inevitably exit early in 1998, I went to the Final in Paris supporting Brazil. France won and the city exploded into a party that made the storming of the Bastille and Liberation Day look like a tea party. I’d dropped a bag at the hotel before the match, and I picked it up on my way to catch the Eurostar the day after. Money well squandered.
I took the decision not to go to the World Cup in America this year. I now have remorse. The cost of tickets and travel put me off, and I had no wish to pander to what I saw as Trump’s games. I am therefore an idiot. I know that on Sunday Morning at 2 am… when we play giant-killing Haiti I will be checking flights and prices to watch us get beaten by Brazil again.
Out of time and have a great weekend, watch the games, party like its 2026, and laugh yourself silly at the sheet fabulosity of it all!
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital
Meanwhile, don’t forget about my new book:
The Battle For Hamble is a proper grown-up examination of how bureaucracy has failed: a tale of Greedy Corporates, Bad Planning and Economic Illiteracy. It explains how a wholly unnecessary Gravel Quarry will be dug in middle of a prosperous village – putting 6000 jobs at risk. The truth is no one wants gravel, and the quarry company understands it’s not what you dig out, but what you stuff back into a hole in the ground that matters. Gravel sells for £30 a tonne – Landfill earns £150 a tonne to bury. Go figure.
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Are you really Scottish Bill?!! No excoriating take down of this World Cup of corruption and nepotism ? Shame on you ! lol
For me, Maradona in ‘86. A force of nature.
I’ll never forget being in South Korea for the World Cup in 2002.
It’s coming home!
Hah. I like to surprise.
I will not damn the people’s party while the world enjoys itself.
But “when the battles lost and won, when the hurley-burleys done”, then there will be a reckoning…
OK, I’ll admit I’m not much of a sports fan. I’m more of the theater (theatre) and music person. The stadium where the final will be played is 15 miles (25km) from my home. Normally it is called Met Life Stadium, after its corporate sponsor. That is in violation of FIFA requirements, so the stadium has been temporarily renamed “New York – New Jersey Stadium”, which I find offensive, simply because the stadium is in New Jersey. I feel that should have been “Bergen County Stadium” or at least “New Jersey – New York Stadium”.
This is all a big money pull. Even mass transit is in on it. A train ride from Manhattan is usually around $25, but is now $98 for the game. They are shutting down most of Penn Station in NY City for 4 hours before the games, which will be a huge headache for regular commuters. If you want to drive, they’ve arranged parking with shuttle busses at a local mall for a mere $225. There are parking lots (car parks) around the stadium but those will be closed for all of the games there, security I guess. I won’t even begin to talk about ticket pricing, but decent seats to any game can cost as much as Bill’s new car. Don’t get me started on ticket resale sites.
That said, have a great weekend, and enjoy watching the games!
Billl, Our fair city, Spokane WA is acting as the “Base Camp” for Egypt, doing workouts with Gonzaga. How will the “Pharaohs” play do you think?
One of the best Scottish football manager – Bill Shankley
‘Some people believe football is a matter of life or death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.’