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There is no clear-cut favorite heading into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, but if you ask Fox Sports analyst Alexi Lalas who he believes will lift the trophy at the end of the tournament, he’ll give you one answer.
“I don’t care who wins as long as it’s not England,” he said during Fox Sports’ FIFA World Cup 2026 Media Day on Wednesday in New York City. “I can abide by a lot of things happening this summer, but one thing I cannot is having England come over on our shores, on our 250th birthday of what I feel is the greatest country in the world, and for them to win a World Cup.
“If you think they’re insufferable now, could you imagine they came over and won that World Cup and it’s coming home through our country. I cannot have that, so anybody but England.”
The U.S.-England rivalry in soccer was in full force in 2022, when they were pitted against each other in their group stage in Qatar. It was a 0-0 draw in a hard-fought match for both sides, but in 2026, they’ll have to get out of their respective groups if they are to meet in the tournament.
But Lalas couldn’t imagine England taking home its first World Cup since 1966 — the country’s only victory in the tournament of all tournaments.
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There is no denying, though, how great the English squad will be this year, as Lalas knows.
“They’re really good,” he said. “As much as it pains me to say, they are very, very good. The soccer gods have a wicked sense of humor. Please not England, anybody but England.”
Lalas’ Fox Sports colleague, host Rebecca Lowe, is a West Londoner who has dreamed of her country winning it all since she can remember.
“Every four years of my play since 1990, I think about England winning the World Cup,” she said after Lalas’ rant. “So, I’m now getting to a stage where if I now go against them, they’re going to do it.
“I’m going to be courageous. It is going to come home.”
Lowe and Lalas said that they will have a bet in place once the tournament begins where, if England does indeed win it all, the latter will have to do something and vice versa.
Carli Lloyd, Stu Holden, and Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez also gave their predictions about who would win. Hernandez was on Lowe’s side believing England could win it all, though he hopes his home country, fellow host site Mexico, can do so instead.
Lloyd and Holden both think France, which fell in penalties to Argentina in the 2022 World Cup Final, will get the job done at MetLife Stadium in July.
“The French, I just look at this team, they continue to get stronger. When they go down a generation, the next generation comes,” Holden said.
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“I’m going to go with France as well,” Lloyd added shortly after. “The depth, the experience. I know firsthand losing in 2011 at the World Cup, coming back and really having that desire to really want to win in 2015. There’s something about that.”
The panel was hopeful the U.S. men’s national team can make a run on home soil, but it’s hard to deny the talent level elsewhere as the best players and countries in the world converge on North America in just a few weeks.
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