The Clip Stage

By Corley MillerJune 29, 2026

The goals are all that really count, in the end—maybe they are all we need to watch. Watching the clips, we have gotten away with something: We have watched the World Cup without having had to watch any soccer.

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Real Canadian DNA

The Dove Fresh Clubhouse offers a series of photo ops after which you can take a misty refreshing shower and treat yourself to a stick of deodorant; Home Depot presents “David Beckham’s Backyard” which does not look like what you might imagine David Beckham’s backyard would look like, or any backyard really, but you can get your face painted in Home Depot–swatched colors (one imagines a child sweatily choosing between eggshell and ecru).

Ariella GarmaiseJul 9, 2026

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World Cupcophony

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Camping

Everybody started undressing but it wasn’t scary. In the dark, nobody could really see anybody else, like we didn’t have bodies. Without a body, in the presence of boys, I felt like a girl, like my ugliness was at bay.

Aurora HuizaJul 7, 2026

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Semiquincentennial Blues

We have passed the point at which absurdity is an aberration. The Monster Energy and Crypto.com sponsorships for the evening: very real. The female quotient including no women fighters, only the “Octagon girls” in sequined hotpants and velvet bodices: also real. The United States Marine Band playing a rendition of “The Boys Are Back in Town": too real. A fighter operating under the moniker Black Beast: painfully real. The Black Beast losing to someone who took his victory speech as an occasion to announce, “Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?”: still real.

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Sounds from Rikers Island

A bit more than three years into his exile from New York City, St. Elmo Sylvester Hope sat for an interview with Down Beat magazine in Los Angeles. He was a diminutive, softspoken man who looked like what his mother had once dreamed he’d become—a professor. But he was actually a working musician who seemed […]

Colin AsherJul 2, 2026

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From Mexico 1986 to North America 2026

The contours of the 2026 World Cup serve as a clear indicator of just how much the footballing relationship between Mexico and the United States has evolved over the four decades since the Azteca Stadium last hosted the tournament. While much remains to be seen—the Mexican national team has so far exceeded expectations and could well outperform the US—one thing seems clear: Football is no longer an exceptional realm that inverts the hierarchy of Mexico’s subaltern relationship with its northern neighbor.

Hugo GarciamarínJun 30, 2026