6 min readTHE 2026 WORLD Cup is almost here, which means you’re about to hear the sweet summer sounds of excitable British people yelling. The North American World Cup, the biggest-ever with an expanded 48 teams, 104 matches, and 16 host cities, runs from June 11 to July 19. The TVs will be on whether you like it or not (you should like it, World Cups are awesome), and faces and voices will start to feel like people you’ve known for a while, somehow.
Fox landed the broadcasting rights in the U.S., and for America’s Premier League fans, a familiar face will be front and center from the jump. Rebecca Lowe, who hosts Premier League coverage on NBC, has been—in football parlance—effectively loaned to Fox for the tournament, where she’ll co-host the studio coverage along with Rob Stone. “When you’ve done a property like the Premier League for so long, you work at a certain level of assumed information,” she tells Men’s Health. “With this preparation [for the World Cup], you have to remember to tell the story from the very beginning.”
Even the diehards will need some extra context this tournament. This thing’s got the two least populous nations to ever qualify for a World Cup (Curaçao and Cape Verde), a spate of new rule changes, the not-yet-open league transfer windows already reshaping star narratives. Which means broadcasters have an essential duty to the public here. Fortunately, a number of them are as knowledgeable as they are interesting. Here’s who to follow closely at the 2026 World Cup.
The Commentators
Ian Darke, Derek Rae, Darren Fletcher
U.S. Soccer fans are well aware of Darke, having called matches for the men’s and women’s teams on ESPN and Fox and immortalizing Landon Donovan’s last-minute goal against Algeria at the 2010 World Cup with “Go, go, USA!” For my money, Darke, Rae, and Fletcher are three of the finest play-by-play announcers in the sport, each possessing a knack for making big moments feel both inevitable and euphoric. For U.S. audiences, Rae’s been the voice of ESPN’s German Bundesliga coverage for the past six years and also features in a little game called FIFA. (OK, fine—“EA FC.”) Fletcher’s the youngest of the three and probably the least familiar to American viewers (he made his U.S. debut with Fox at Euro 2024), but he’s established himself as one of the best in England. His calls in both Tottenham and Liverpool’s dramatic Champions League semifinal victories in 2019 have already become iconic, plus you have to hear the way the guy commentates on baseball.
The Commentators … En Español
Andrés Cantor, Jozy Altidore
It wouldn’t be right to leave out mi gente latina, especially because former U.S. striker [checks notes] Jozy Altidore is serving as a commentator for Telemundo. Wait—what?? Altidore, the son of Haitian immigrants who cut his teeth with the New York Red Bulls before moving to Spain at 18 (for one year!), has no prior broadcasting experience. He described his Spanish level to NBC News as, “I can get by … I thought, ‘What a cool challenge.’” Man, that’s brave—yet another reason to respect the USMNT’s third all-time leading goalscorer (behind Donovan and Clint Dempsey).
As for Cantor, you don’t need to know Spanish—or soccer, really—to recognize his signature “Gooooooooooool!” The legendary Telemundo commentator has long transcended language barriers and remains the perfect choice for ramping up the emotion of a game—or simply for switching over when the English-language broadcast is hating on your team a little too hard. (We’ve all been there.)
The Studio Host
Rebecca Lowe
Lowe’s been greeting the half-asleep, coffee-sipping U.S. Premier League fandom almost every weekend for 13 years now—it feels like we’ve grown up with her in a way. She’ll spend the majority of the group stage and round of 32 working out of Fox’s studio in Los Angeles, save for the U.S.’s first and last group stage matches at SoFi Stadium. Then Lowe and her colleagues will hit the road. “There will be no base, I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping, but who cares?” she says. “It’ll be two weeks of absolute joy where there’s everything to play for and everything on the line.”
Lowe’s no stranger to traveling the country for her job; she’s hosted all 12 Premier League fan fests NBC Sports has put on since 2018. Still, this will be a whole ‘nother level. “Football fans are way more prevalent than people realize,” she says. “It’s going to blow people’s minds, the amount of fans who come out for this.” Let’s just hope for viewers’ sakes (and Fox’s) that England doesn’t lift the trophy. “I’ve said that if, for any reason, England do win the World Cup, they’re gonna come back at full-time to the desk and I’m just not gonna be there,” the London native and now-naturalized U.S. citizen says. “I’m just gonna be running around the stadium, twirling my England flag.”
The Pundits
Thierry Henry, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, Emma Hayes, Thiago Alcântara, Clarence Seedorf, John Obi Mikel
What a stacked lineup. All brilliant football minds, each with a varying degree of experience talking on the telly. Henry doesn’t need much introduction. The renowned former Arsenal and Barcelona forward has worked as a Champions League analyst for CBS Sports since 2021, regularly getting clipped in viral posts with his colleagues Kate Scott, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards. Ibrahimović, meanwhile, is making his studio analyst debut, but the man who has fashioned a God-like caricature around himself and who spent his career scoring ridiculously absurd goals—from the Swedish national team to the Los Angeles Galaxy—is sure to be box office.
Then you get into the category of Fox pundits I simply like to think of as the ball-knowers tier. These guys aren’t necessarily there for their entertainment value—though I’m sure they’ll be great—but rather because they’re supremely accomplished and intelligent former footballers. There’s Seedorf, the Dutch legend, the only man to ever win the Champions League with three different clubs (Ajax, Real Madrid, AC Milan). Alcântara, the midfield maestro of Barca, Bayern Munich, and Liverpool fame—one of the silkiest and most technically gifted players of his generation. Then Mikel, the former Nigeria captain who won nearly everything there is to win with Chelsea. And finally Chicharito, a cult hero for Manchester United, fan favorite at the LA Galaxy, and Mexico’s all-time leading goalscorer.
One more pundit deserves a mention, even if she won’t be appearing on Fox. It’s only Emma Hayes, a seven-time Women's Super League champion with Chelsea and the Olympic gold medal-winning manager of the U.S. women's national team! What a coup for ITV, the British network where Hayes is sure to offer astute tactical analysis and managerial insight. Find her on YouTube or perhaps via a VPN.
The Content Creators
Céline Dept, Fiago (Finn Agostinelli), TikTok Creator Correspondents
Of course, no broadcast guide can be complete without mentioning how most of us actually watch things these days: social media. You’ll have no shortage of options throughout the tournament—TikTok and FIFA announced a whole cohort of 30 creators specifically brought on to document the tournament in real-time. But two football creators to keep an eye on in particular are Céline Dept and Fiago, both active on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Dept, with a massive 81 million followers across those three platforms, has made her name collaborating with the game’s top players in skill challenges and fan-focused shenanigans. (Here she is somehow announcing PSG’s Champions League victory from the stadium seconds before it happened.) Expect her to have a presence at the tournament. Fiago, meanwhile, is a good resource for breakdowns on the World Cup’s teams, players, and general storylines. His 2026 predictions video is a handy primer on the contenders, dark horses, and stars most likely to make an impact, and he’ll surely be posting throughout the month-long bonanza.
With just days to go until the tournament kicks off, you better get started familiarizing yourself if you haven’t already. Good luck, and for old time’s sake, go, go USA!
Aric Jenkins is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY. He most recently worked at The Ringer, where he served as the deputy managing editor, and previously worked as a staff writer at Fortune and TIME. He is a long-suffering Tottenham and Philly sports fan.
