As Canada exits the World Cup, Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on X: "Today, we feel nothing but pride ... An incredible journey that bodes well for great things to come. Thank you to our team, the fans, and everyone who contributed to our best performance to date at the World Cup." Canada is the first host nation to be knocked out of the 2026 tournament. Mexico plays England on Sunday evening and the U.S. takes on Belgium on Monday.

MAGA-friendly Abelardo de la Espriella's decision to make Colombia's national soccer jersey a defining feature of his victorious right-wing presidential campaign has sparked a debate over the political ownership of national symbols.

While the yellow shirt has long been associated with moments of collective celebration, critics argue that its prominent use by a partisan candidate risks recasting it as a marker of political identity. A Bogotá judge even banned de la Espriella from wearing the jersey while campaigning before the June 21 vote.

After hearing from fans in Miami on Saturday night vociferously in support of de la Espriella and his unflinching law-and-order policies, POLITICO spoke to two experts on Colombian politics who say the episode reflects a broader pattern seen in populist movements, where patriotic imagery is deployed to blur the line between support for the nation and support for a political project.

“In my view, he was very deliberately politicizing the national team’s shirt,” Eduardo Gamarra, professor of politics and international relations at Florida International University, said. “The Colombian jersey is one of the few symbols that can still claim to belong to all Colombians, across region, class and ideology. That is precisely why it is attractive to a populist campaign: it allows a partisan political project to present itself as the nation itself.”

“This is not unique to Colombia. Populist politicians around the world routinely try to appropriate national symbols. In the United States, MAGA politics has turned the American flag and other patriotic symbols into markers of partisan identity. In Venezuela, Chavismo also understood the power of national colors, patriotic imagery and sporting symbols such as the Vinotinto [the national team],” Gamarra added. “De la Espriella’s use of the shirt was effective because it transformed the emotion around the national team into a signal of political belonging.”

“But to me the real surprise is not that de la Espriella tried to use the jersey, or even that it worked. The surprise is how ineffective opposition groups were in defending the shirt as a shared national symbol. They allowed a symbol that should belong to the whole country to be claimed by one political camp,” Gamarra said.

The jersey’s appeal, however, went beyond nationalism — helping to reinforce de la Espriella's carefully crafted populist image ahead of the election final round that he won in mid-June.

“Abelardo de la Espriella used the national team's shirt, traditionally a symbol of unity and celebration throughout the country, especially at the time of the World Cup, to associate his campaign with strong patriotism,” said Julian Gerez, assistant professor of criminology, law and society and political science at the University of California, Irvine. “But I think more importantly, it's about de la Espriella's own image: he is a multimillionaire lawyer but it is essential to his brand to appear as a man of the people. And as opposed to wearing a suit jacket or other formal attire, which is what might be expected, the jersey and hat play an important role in the way he portrays his image.”

“Ultimately, I think it was an effective tactic, but [leftist candidate] Ivan Cepeda's campaign ironically made it more effective by coming out against its use, which led to greater awareness of the jersey as linked to de la Espriella's campaign — and stronger defiance among his supporters in wearing the jersey,” Gerez added.

Arriving in the U.S. from Belgium to cover the World Cup, one overarching controversy stood out from the Iran war, visas and commercial exploitation: Should POLITICO call the sport football or soccer?

Our style guide entry — “The worldwide sport should be referred to as football in Europe and soccer in the U.S. In European copy, refer to American football for the different U.S. sport played in the NFL” — didn’t end the debate.

Ultimately, America won the internal argument (quelle surprise!) and we’ll be calling it soccer for the next five weeks, despite FIFA’s name literally having the word football in it.

Lucky, really, that it’s not the Fédération Internationale de “Soccer“ Association — as that would have sparked some confusion about which FISA exactly we were talking about in the newsroom this summer. Surveillance, section 702 and Bill Pulte? Or the low block, gegenpressing and Gianni Infantino?

POLITICO caught up with European Sports Commissioner Glenn Micallef in Brussels last week to get his top tips for the World Cup. The 36-year-old Micallef is the youngest member of President Ursula von der Leyen’s team of EU commissioners, and the Maltese official has repeatedly chided FIFA during his tenure, on everything from supporter safety and security to overall governance.

Unlike previous officials who have held Brussels’ top sports role, Micallef is a genuine soccer fan, who has been busy collecting World Cup Panini stickers and sharing daily tournament fun facts with his staff.

Best World Cup memory? "Zinedine Zidane scoring twice in the 1998 final against Brazil. It was the first World Cup final [I watched] so it has a special place in my heart."

Favorite World Cup? "Either France '98 ... or Brazil 2014."

Which player are you most excited to watch in 2026? "Michael Olise (of France)."

Bold prediction for 2026? "Portugal will do very well." (POLITICO pointed out that Portugal perhaps didn't meet the definition of bold, given some oddsmakers have them as fourth favorites to win the tournament, to which Micallef sharpened his forecast.) "They might surprise some people and make it all the way to the end."

Who’s going to win? "Spain or France." (POLITICO: "Can you commit to one or the other?") "My heart says Spain."

Read the full Q&A here.

World Cup history is awash with politics — and politicians — intruding on the soccer.

For almost a century, leaders ranging from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to Argentine military junta boss Jorge Videla to French President Jacques Chirac have sought to score political points from the tournament.

This year’s competition is also not the first to be overshadowed by conflict. North Korea tried to upstage the event in 2002 with a bloody naval assault on South Korea, and the Falklands War between Britain and Argentina loomed over the 1982 World Cup.

In 1934, Mussolini viewed a World Cup victory as a way to symbolize Italian might. Brazilian dictator Emílio Médici said that the 1970 triumph was testament to his country’s greatness. Memories of the Falklands provided fraught context to England’s clash with Argentina in 1986, one of the most famous games in the tournament’s history.

In more recent times, Chirac cast himself as a big fan of the all-conquering, racially diverse French national team in 1998. Vladimir Putin exploited the 2018 tournament to project Russian soft power, while Gulf petromonarchy Qatar used the 2022 edition as part of a major nation-building project.

And this year, it's the the politics of MAGA — an ongoing foreign war and domestic immigration crackdown — that are coming back to bite soccer's governing body FIFA.

Read the full story here.