Matt Cooper

Oh, it's so sad.

Elizabeth Strout, I loved The Things We Never Say.

I think it's going to go down as one of the best novels of the year.

It's been lovely meeting you.

And so it's finally here.

It's the start of the World Cup 2026.

We have Mexico and South Africa this evening in the opening game.

We're joined by Miguel Delaney, Chief Football Writer of The Independent and Dion Fanning, co-host of the Free State podcast.

Okay, Dion, I'm going to start with you and I'm going to show my age a little bit in that I grew up with the tournaments of 74 and 78, 16 teams.

Then it went to 24 teams back in 1982.

I think it was 2002 it went to 32.

Now it's going to 48 teams, which means that with 16 extra teams, 40 extra games, 104 games, even for those of us who've always loved World Cups, is that too much?

I think there were probably more UEFA teams back when there were 24 now than there are with 48.

And as Dave Hannigan pointed out last week, that's why we're going to have the beauty of Congo versus Uzbekistan.

You'll be staying up to watch that, will you?

What time is that on?

Does it matter what time it's on?

I don't know.

Miguel, what do you think?

Are there too many games in this?