Everyone's got a team.

How the world is really watching the 2026 World Cup. We asked 506 fans, in 17 countries and 12 languages, what they feel, who they back, and what is in their hand at kick-off.

• ›Fans are emotionally all-in, but their loyalty lives with a national shirt and a living-room ritual, not with a sponsor.
• ›The title race that looked one-sided a month ago has tightened into a genuine two-horse contest: Argentina 23% then France 19%.
• ›59% of fans remember a brand. Coca-Cola alone shows up in 114 of 506 chats, far ahead of the rest.
• ›The things fans remember best are the things they can see on the pitch and hold in their hand.
• ›9 in 10 fans rate our AI host 4 or 5, a 14-minute voice chat they were happy to have. Mean score 4.58 of 5.

Preface

At any given moment during this tournament, hundreds of millions of people are doing the same thing at once: watching football with someone they care about. They are not all watching for the football. They are watching to feel part of something. The match is the reason to gather. The gathering is the point.

To understand that, we did something traditional surveys cannot. Instead of tick boxes, we sat 506 fans down for a real conversation. Our AI host talked with each of them, in their own language, for about 14 minutes, listening to how they actually feel about the 2026 World Cup. The result is the largest fan-voice study of its kind this tournament: 17 countries, 12 languages, one group stage.