I began this tournament as a neutral. I ended it having worn the colours of five different countries, been sincerely adopted by all of them, and cried about the result of a match involving a nation I could not have located on a map eight weeks earlier.
This is not a confession. It is a recommendation.
The problem with neutrality
Watching football as a neutral is like going to a wedding where you know nobody and refusing to dance. Technically you are present. Nothing is happening to you.
The first match I watched without picking a side, I enjoyed the stadium and felt nothing about the football. The second match, I picked a team in the morning on the flimsiest possible grounds, and by the seventieth minute I was standing up with my hands on my head like a person with a lifelong grievance. Same tournament, completely different day.
So I made it a rule. Every match, pick a side before kick-off. Commit entirely. Absolutely no hedging.
How to pick a team, honestly
Everyone pretends there is a system. There is not. Here is what I actually used, in rough order of frequency:
- Where I have been, or want to go. Morocco was easy – I had spent six weeks there and could still taste the msemen. Spain, likewise. This is the most honest method for a travel account and produces the strongest feelings.
- Who I met first. More than once, whoever talked to me in the queue chose for me. A grandmother teaching you a chant is a binding contract.
- The underdog, always. The 48-team format meant a lot of debutants, and there is nothing like standing among people watching their country at a World Cup for the first time. Nothing.
- The better song. A completely valid criterion. Some national supporter groups have a chant that gets into your ribs within ninety seconds, and you may as well accept it.
- The colours. I have no defence for this one. Sometimes the face paint decides.
The face paint problem
At the first match somebody painted a stripe on my cheek without asking, which was correct of her. After that it became the ritual: find the folding table, sit down, hand over a few coins, let a stranger decide what your face looks like for the next eight hours.
By the end I had worn red and green, red and gold, sky blue and white, and two combinations I could not now reconstruct. Nobody once accused me of being a tourist about it. The opposite: putting a country’s colours on your face is read, everywhere, as a small act of respect. You are saying today I am with you, and people take it in exactly that spirit.
What I learned: never wear two teams’ colours to the same match. Pick one, wear it, take the consequences. Hedging is the only thing that actually offends anybody.
The chants
Ask, and someone will teach you. This is universal and I never once found an exception.
You will not understand the words. That is not the point – you will be taught the rhythm, the clap, and the one syllable everyone shouts, and after two repetitions you can carry it. There is a very specific joy in shouting something in a language you do not speak, surrounded by people who do, all of you meaning the same thing.
My honest advice: learn the clap pattern first. The words come with it.
What happens when your adopted team loses
You feel it, and that is the surprising part. Adopted loyalty is real loyalty for the ninety minutes that matter, and afterwards there is a strange, tender fifteen minutes where a group of strangers you joined that morning are quiet together.
Stay for that. It is the most human part of the whole day. Do not film people crying, do not commiserate loudly, just stand there and be one of them. Then somebody will make a joke, and it will be over, and someone will suggest food.
The five I ended up with
Morocco, because I had just come from there and my whole camera roll was still red and green. Spain, because Seville taught me how a country holds a shared emotion, and because they went and won the thing. Portugal, entirely because of the singing. And two others chosen for me in queues by people who were not accepting alternatives.
I have kept every scarf. Coco has, alarmingly, kept one too, and wears it with the confidence of someone who has never watched a match in her life.
Questions I get asked most
Is it disrespectful to support a country you have no connection to?
I worried about this and was wrong to. Every single group I joined treated it as a compliment. What people dislike is indifference, not enthusiasm.
What if I pick against the local crowd?
Fine, and usually funny, as long as you are gracious. Bring good humour, do not gloat, and buy someone a drink afterwards.
Does the face paint come off?
Eventually. Bring wipes. Do not attempt it with hotel soap at midnight, as I did, twice.
Keep exploring: the full World Cup 2026 guide, watching without a ticket, and the day I wore red and green in Atlanta.
— Lina
