England's Teams Are Back — and the World Cup Is Almost Here

Four Goals Before Half-Time

Four goals. One half. Sweltering New Jersey heat. Scotland hadn't even broken a sweat before Bolivia knew it was over.

That scoreline from Sports Illustrated Stadium — Scotland's final World Cup warm-up before Sunday's opener against Haiti — tells you something about the mood sweeping British football right now. After years of near-misses and hard lessons, two of the home nations are heading into the 2026 FIFA World Cup with something rare and genuinely precious: momentum.

And they're not alone. The tournament — the first to be co-hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, kicking off on 11 June — is already generating the kind of drama and storylines that remind you why football stops the world.

Clarke's Beautiful Problem

Scotland head coach Steve Clarke could barely hide his grin after the Bolivia rout, and who could blame him. "For once, I got everything I asked for — no injuries, a performance and a good result," he told BBC Scotland. What he also got was a selection headache of the best kind.

A commanding defence. A midfield four who were, as BBC Sport Scotland reported, "here, there and everywhere." Two strikers, three goals in the first half alone. Now Clarke faces genuine competition for every starting berth — from who starts in goal (Angus Gunn or Craig Gordon?) to which forward combination lines up against Haiti on Sunday. "The starting XI becomes a fixation," Clarke admitted, "but this is a tournament for your finishing XI." It's the kind of problem coaches dream about.

Bellingham, Tuchel, and a Tampa Truce

Meanwhile, 1,100 miles south in Tampa, Florida, England's football squad was writing its own subplot. A 1-0 warm-up win over New Zealand. Jude Bellingham, 22, coming off the bench at half-time, taking the captain's armband, and reminding everyone exactly who he is.

The relationship between Bellingham and manager Thomas Tuchel has been one of the tournament's most watched storylines. Tuchel famously called Bellingham's on-field behaviour during June's defeat by Senegal "repulsive" — a word he later apologised for. In November, he threatened to "review" Bellingham's conduct after a substitution incident against Albania. But Tampa, it seems, offered something like a reset.

"You can see Jude has for sure the decisiveness and bite," Tuchel said after the New Zealand friendly. "He comes from an injury and is full of energy and happy to be back on the pitch." A hamstring problem had kept Bellingham out of March's friendlies, and a shoulder injury had cost him two qualifying matches last September. His place in the starting XI remains a fight to be won — Tuchel confirmed as much — but the signs from Tampa were encouraging. Call it, in Tuchel's own words, a "sweet spot."

England's Cricketers Find Theirs at Lord's

The footballers weren't the only England side with something to prove against New Zealand this week.

At Lord's, on a grey, overcast Sunday morning that felt nothing like a summer's day, England's cricket team completed a 115-run victory to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match Test series — their first competitive match since a chastening 4-1 Ashes defeat in Australia. The win came in less than a session on day four. It was emphatic, controlled, and deeply necessary.

From 55-5 overnight, New Zealand were hustled out for just 138. The chief tormentor was Gus Atkinson, whose 5-30 earned him yet another entry on the Lord's honours board. But as BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew argued, the most significant figure in the attack might be someone else entirely: Josh Tongue. "Josh Tongue is England's premier bowler at the moment," Agnew wrote. "I've got no doubts about that. His development is remarkable."

Ollie Robinson, meanwhile, took three wickets in his first over back — nervier than on his debut, head coach Brendon McCullum reportedly noted — while debutant Emilio Gay anchored the batting with a game-high 57 that steadied England when they needed it most. "Comebacks don't get much better," as one match report put it.

Captain Ben Stokes and coach McCullum, who both reportedly felt "enormous relief" at the result, know well that one Test proves little. But it proved enough: that this attack has control, variety, and edge. Qualities that were missing in Australia.

A Tournament Already Making History

Beyond the British storylines, the World Cup itself is already doing something unprecedented. Iran's football team was this week granted visas to enter the United States — confirmed just 10 days before their opening match against New Zealand in Los Angeles on 15 June. It marks the first time a World Cup host nation has welcomed the team of a country it is formally at war with. US officials confirmed the visas had been issued for athletes and necessary support staff, while also stating that Iran would not be permitted to "abuse this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretenses." The Iranian football federation had yet to publicly comment.

It is, by any measure, an extraordinary geopolitical moment dressed in football boots.

The Weeks Ahead

What connects all of this — a raucous afternoon in New Jersey, a damp morning at Lord's, a Tampa friendly, a charged visa announcement in Washington — is the unmistakable feeling of a sporting world holding its breath.

The 2026 World Cup promises to be the biggest, most complicated, most watched football tournament in history. Scotland are in it. England are in it. And somewhere out there, Jude Bellingham is training hard, Josh Tongue is running in at full tilt, and Steve Clarke is staring at a team sheet, grinning at his own impossible choices. For fans, that's not a bad place for the world to be.