Just two days earlier, thousands of miles away, his wife had given birth to a son. A father, away on national duty, had not yet held his newborn child. All the longing, all the quiet ache of that distance, seemed to pour out under the Dallas sun.

June 21, 1970. The galleries of the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City roared like a sea of yellow and blue. Brazil, having torn apart Italy’s resolute defense, could already smell victory. The scoreboard read 3-1 in favor of the Selecao. There were still 20 minutes left on the clock in the final.

Bayern Munich and Germany forward Serge Gnabry could miss this summer's World Cup after tearing a muscle in his thigh, the Bundesliga club announced on Saturday.

World Cup fans will have to pay $150 -- more than 10 times the normal price -- for the quick round-trip train between New York and Meadowlands stadium when it hosts the tournament's final and seven earlier matches, local officials said Friday, drawing outrage.

Friendship is not always about standing side by side. Sometimes, it becomes a presence even in absence -- silent, unseen, yet profoundly felt. It is a feeling that cannot be touched or seen, yet in the hardest moments, it stands right at the center of the chest, as a strange source of strength.

In the end, FIFA handed the responsibility to Mexico in 1983.

War, too, has its rhythm. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes a breath-stopping surge of tension. But there are some battles where rhythm ceases to exist -- where there is only relentless attack and an unyielding resistance in response.

Infantino said he was recently in Antalya, Turkey, to visit with the Iranian team at its training camp and said the team wants to participate in the World Cup.

The 23-year-old crumpled in a heap holding his lower right leg with a suspected ruptured Achilles tendon during the first half of Liverpool's 2-0 quarter-final second-leg defeat to European champions PSG on Tuesday.

But what happened at the 1982 World Cup in Spain goes far beyond mere drama -- it was one of the most bizarre, unprecedented, and controversial episodes in football history, where a country’s prince walked onto the pitch to influence a referee’s decision.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said on X that football's world governing body -- which stands to earn $11 billion from the tournament -- should foot the bill for transport costs to World Cup venues.

When does a person cry? When they lose, or when they finally gain? Or perhaps both.

Klose never allowed himself to be bigger than the game.

There was a strange, taut tension inside the stands, as if the breath of thousands had stalled at once. Amid the 22 bodies darting across the green pitch, there was a silent anticipation -- waiting for someone to rise above the rest. That wait felt ancient, almost timeless. A moment -- just one -- that would change everything.

Neymar, Brazil's all-time leading scorer with 79 goals, has not played for the national team since suffering a serious knee injury in October 2023.

The summer of 2006 in Germany was a time of transition. The reign of the nineties legends was drawing to a close, and world football was searching for a new icon. In Argentina, this search had been an obsession ever since the 1986 World Cup triumph. They were not simply waiting for a footballer -- they were waiting for a saviour in the mould of Diego Maradona.

Argentina begin their title defence on June 16 against Algeria.

Some moments remain beyond forgiveness, because they wound belief itself.

Alongside the history of the FIFA World Cup, one of its most inseparable elements -- the football itself -- has evolved in step.

The setting was the iconic San Siro in Milan, where two fierce rivals -- West Germany and the Netherlands -- met in a high-stakes round of 16 clash. Laden with the weight of history and footballing supremacy, the encounter carried an air of simmering hostility long before kickoff.