Thank you all for joining us today.

Enjoy this evening’s matches. Join Daniel Harris for Portugal v DR Congo.

John McGinn is a Baz Luhrmann fan.

What’s happening in the world of transfers? There’s one way to find out …

Cast your eyes on today’s Football Daily …

Rain is not a huge problem when you have a massive roof …

Fulham vice chairman and director of football operations Tony Khan says the club have been engaged in “a few great conversations” in their search for a new manager – with two leading candidates having now emerged.

The Cottagers are searching for a new head coach after Marco Silva ended his five-year spell in west London to join Benfica as a replacement for Jose Mourinho.

Former Real Madrid boss Alvaro Arbeloa is understood to be one of those in talks over the Fulham vacancy after the 43-year-old left the Spanish giants, paving the way for Mourinho’s return to the Bernabeu.

Coventry boss Frank Lampard is another to have been linked with the job, along with Portuguese coach Hugo Oliveira, who previously worked at Fulham as part of Silva’s backroom staff before taking over at Famalicao in December 2024.

While not being drawn on any specific names, Khan revealed there had been “several” meetings with two candidates as Fulham look to get things set in place ahead of a return to pre-season training.

“It is something we are working on and we have been actively talking and working to find somebody to come in,” Khan said in an interview with FFCtv, admitting the club’s expectation had been Silva would sign a new deal to stay on.

“There has been a lot of names mentioned and it is interesting because it is going very well and there has been a few great conversations in particular. We have got a few people that the board is talking to that are very exciting and interesting candidates.” PA Media

Ian Wright seems be permanently living his best life.

Falkirk have sold Barney Stewart to West Brom for a club record transfer fee just over 18 months after the forward was playing non-league football with Heriot-Watt University.

The 22-year-old has signed a four-year contract with the EFL Championship side after the two clubs agreed a deal “with potential for significant add-ons” for the Bairns.

After being unearthed by manager John McGlynn in 2024 while playing in the East of Scotland League as a student, Stewart enjoyed a stunning rise over the past season as he returned from a fruitful loan stint at Dunfermline in January to notch nine goals for Falkirk in the second half of the campaign.

“During his time with Falkirk, Barney became a fan favourite, not just for his ability on the pitch, but also for his personality off it,” said a Falkirk statement announcing the transfer. His energy, positivity, and enthusiasm were infectious, making him a well-liked and important member of what is an extremely tight-knit dressing room.

“Barney leaves with the best wishes of everyone at Falkirk Football Club. We wish him the very best of luck in the next stage of what we all believe will be a very successful career.” PA

I realise many of the readers at this time may worry that we have run out of hot content to ram down your throats.

To those pessimists, I offer the best article of the day.

I keep debating if Marcus Rashford will be a huge influence for England. He has a point to prove in a summer when his future is in limbo. Barcelona will not sign him and Manchester United are not too keen on having him back but a good World Cup will generate plenty of interest.

It is a few hours to kick off in Houston where Portugal will face DR Congo … and it’s raining!

Thanks Tom. I am back from a primary school sports day where I saw some performance that reminded me of England at major tournaments.

And with that, it’s time for another switch. We’re playing rolling subs here, and Will Unwin is back on the touchline and ready to return to the fray. Bye.

In a few hours’ time Democratic Republic of the Congo will play their first World Cup finals game in 52 years, a daunting opener against Portugal. But amid serious adversity they’re determined to make the most of the occasion. Nick Ames reports.

While Aaron Barton assesses the state of Portugal, and the importance of Vitinha and Bruno Fernandes.

On this day in World Cup history: back to 2010 today and banter-era France went down 2-0 to a decent Mexico side (as in 2002 and 2006, El Tri should have gone further than they did that year). This day in 1994 was also when the first US World Cup kicked off, Germany beating Bolivia and that Diana Ross penalty miss.

France’s ultimately impressive win over Senegal last night spotlighted positives and negatives about their approach – namely how best to deploy Ousmane Dembélé, Kylian Mbappé and Michael Olise.

And wasn’t the latter magnificent in the second half? Olise’s was the best 45 minutes produced by any individual player thus far, for my money.

Anyway, Luke Entwistle has produced this sharp analysis of last night’s game.

Colour me underwhelmed, by the way, by the predictable trumpeting by Fifa of “attendance records”. There haven’t been that many four-game days in past World Cup so yesterday’s 281,223, while impressive, isn’t earth-shattering. Nor is the news that this World Cup is on track to surpass the tournament’s best cumulative record attendance of 3.5 million in 1994. Of course it is – it’s double the size of that World Cup.

And now in one of the rarest-of-rare handovers, we go from one Leyton Orient season ticket holder to another, as Tom Davies is picking up the next stint. I will be back here again tomorrow afternoon after my jaunt to Brighton. Enjoy the games tonight/tomorrow!

It is far too early in the tournament for England fans to be getting into flare-inserting antics yet, but there are other ways of drawing attention. In the case of Toby Clark that has been spending “a little over eight-and-a-half hours” sculpting an England badge using stones found on a beach near Lowestoft, Suffolk. It kept him out of trouble I suppose.

Talking of badges, I noticed in the comments people discussing which side at the World Cup has the finest badge, with Côte d’Ivoire getting mentioned, despite the open question of whether an elephant playing the ball with its trunk would count as the equivalent of a handball.

I was very taken with this picture on the wires of thousands of Jordanians gathering in the 6,000-seat, 2nd-century Roman amphitheatre in Amman to watch Jordan v Austria. It isn’t quite loads of beers going up in the air at a Boxpark is it?

As is my wont I was having a look around at Croatian online media to see if there was some interesting coverage, but mostly what I discovered is that their leading tabloid website crashes my browser, and that another paper has covered a chimpanzee from Kent predicting that England will win. A cynic would say these “psychic” animals are just a way of drumming up publicity for your wildlife park, but I’ll make an exception in this case because Jane, who lives at Wingham Wildlife Park near Canterbury, was abandoned by her mother, is only four months old, and is beyond adorable.

Lionel Messi, in his 200th cap, scored three goals and tied with Germany’s Miroslav Klose as the leading all-time World Cup goalscorer with 16. “It’s just a statistic,” he said, while also name-checking Kylian Mbappé, who moved on to 14 World Cup goals yesterday.

In non-World Cup news, the opening rounds of the Intertoto Cup Champions League actually take place before the World Cup finishes, and somebody in Nyon has been shuffling balls around to work out who is playing whom. Hearts will face Austrian side Sturm Graz in the second qualifying round, and if they get through that will face one of Lyon, Bodø/Glimt, Olympiacos, Fenerbahçe or Górnik Zabrze to try and reach the league stage.

In the first qualifying round, which was drawn yesterday, readers may have interest in The New Saints facing Azerbaijan’s Sabah FK, Shamrock Rovers have drawn Floriana of Malta, Larne have landed Tre Fiori from San Marino, and Gibraltar’s perennial champions Lincoln Red Imps have got Inter Club d’Escaldes from Andorra.

My plans for today include listening to Portugal v DRC on a train to Brighton, seeing Maxïmo Park and then watching England v Croatia at Chalk, then listening to Ghana v Panama on the train back up to London. I may give Uzbekistan v Colombia a miss in the interests of actually getting to work tomorrow with my eyes open. You, probably, have other plans, and here is Graham Ruthven with the details of the what, where, when and how to watch of today’s matches.

Thank you very much for joining for this first stint of the day. The incomparable Martin Belam is heading your way for further buildup, then I will be back a bit later.

Turkish state broadcaster TRT has removed a commentator from its World Cup roster after he mixed up Iran and New Zealand teams.

TRT said in a statement late on Tuesday that the commentator, identified by Turkish media as Murat Ekrem Çimen, had been withdrawn from the World Cup broadcast team in the U.S. pending investigation. It added that he would not continue to comment on matches during the tournament.

According to reports in Turkish media, Cimen referred to Iran’s attacks as New Zealand’s and described New Zealand’s moves as Iran’s during the opening minutes of the broadcast. The teams shared a 2-2 draw on Monday night in Group G.

TRT said the mistake was “unacceptable” under its broadcasting standards. “We apologize to our viewers and the public for this error,” it said. “It is unacceptable for TRT that someone with over 30 years of experience in sports broadcasting would make such a mistake.” AP

Replica World Cup shirts of several German players were temporarily unavailable due to a shortage of the letter “V” following high demand from fans, Adidas said Wednesday.

The sportswear giant, which supplies kits for the German team, said supporters flocking to snap up shirts of Kai Havertz, Deniz Undav and Aleksandar Pavlovic had drained supplies of the letter.

“There were short-term shortages in the availability of the letter ’V’,” a spokesman told AFP. But he added that “these were quickly resolved” and that football tops with the “letter ’V’ will soon be available to order online again”.

Earlier Wednesday, an attempt to buy a Havertz shirt on Adidas’s online store was unsuccessful, and produced the message: “Sorry, we’re currently out of stock of the following characters: V.” But they were available again later in the day, at a cost of 170 euros ($198).

Adidas supplies kits for 14 of the 48 teams competing at this year’s World Cup, and makes huge profits from selling merchandise related to the tournament.

But the German national team is dropping Adidas as its kit supplier from 2027, ending a partnership that spanned more than 70 years and four World Cup triumphs, and switching to US sportswear giant Nike. AFP

Will Harry Kane follow in the footsteps of Mbappe, Haaland and Messi later? He certainly has the pedigree.

My early memories are watching World Cup matches in the school hall. Unfortunately, the time zones have ruined this for the current generation of British kids. There was nothing like being allowed to change up the timetable and have two hours of England v Tunisia.

The mourning after isn’t always easy, Mikel Merino says – and yes that is mourning with a “u”. “No one died, it’s not a mourning exactly, but at times defeats can feel like that,” the Arsenal midfielder admitted and, although it wasn’t actually a defeat at all, this was one of those times. A 0-0 draw against Cape Verde in their World Cup opener was not the way Spain dreamed it; now, Merino insisted as the selección returned to their Tennessee training camp six long days before they get the chance to make amends, they must deal with it. Each in their own way, but as a family.

Sid Lowe on Spain’s need to bounce back from drawing with Cape Verde.

A huge day for English sport … the men’s cricket team is taking on New Zealand in the second Test.

You can follow it here …

Just in case any England fans are not feeling particularly patriotic yet …

Are we going to predict the England lineup later?

Pickford; James, Stones, Guehi, O’Reilly; Anderson, Rice; Saka, Bellingham, Gordon; Kane

How do you think the World Cup will pan out? You can predict the future with our interactive Bracketology tool.

Need to know more about the England team? We’ve got you covered.

The same goes for Croatia.

The Everton midfielder Aurora Galli spoke to Sophie Downey about the anterior cruciate ligament injury she suffered in September 2024. With Italy due to play in the 2025 European Championship, Galli aimed for a swift return to the pitch, seeking to be back playing in six months. ‘I think it was like seven-and-a-half,’ she remembers, ‘I pushed it.’ She returned for Everton on the last day of the 2024-25 season but was not named in Andrea Soncin’s final squad. However, she was invited to meet up with the Italy squad as they reached a historic semi-final.

Austria coach Ralf Rangnick saluted the quality of the World Cup’s debutants ⁠after his team rode their luck in a 3-1 win over Jordan on Tuesday.

Austria were at times exposed ⁠by a bold ⁠Jordan side ​playing their first World Cup game and, despite going into the contest as favourites, only wrapped up victory ⁠with substitute Marko Arnautovic’s penalty in the 12th minute of second-half stoppage time.

Expectations for Austria had been raised by an ⁠impressive performance at Euro 2024 but they may be tempered by Tuesday’s ​display, especially ahead of a ‌game against Group J ‌leaders Argentina, who beat Algeria 3-0.

Rangnick, however, credited Jordan for keeping his ‌side in check. “I think it’s due to the opponent,” the coach said when asked why Austria struggled. Jordan did a fantastic job throughout the match. We expected a difficult opponent, we knew that they were going to be anything but easy, but today they displayed a very brave kind ‌of football. They exceeded my expectations. I know that some of you thought that we would be the favourite in this ​match, but we were definitely not.”

Rangnick said he welcomed the fact that the World Cup’s expansion to 48 teams gave more countries a chance to participate, calling it “an enriching experience”.

But he also said the so-called smaller nations were ⁠not just making up the numbers, referring to Spain’s shock ​draw with Cape Verde, ​Australia’s surprise win over ​Turkey and Haiti’s gritty performance against Scotland.

“It’s not that easy ​to win during ‌this tournament – we ​have 48 teams ​and there is not going to be one easy opponent,” he said. “The teams now have really caught up in the last 15 years or so, so there are really no easy teams.” Reuters

In Bruno Fernandes, Vitinha, João Neves, Bernardo Silva, Rúben Neves and Samú Costa, Portugal may have the best group of midfielders at the tournament. Fernandes is fresh off his most productive Premier League campaign for Manchester United (nine goals, 21 assists), leading the top flight for chances created (136) and breaking the Premier League record for most assists in a single campaign, edging past Thierry Henry (20 in 2002-03) and Kevin de Bruyne (20 in 2019-20).

I have some exclusive World Cup transfer news to bring to the party.

Australia’s Connor Metcalfe, who was in his country’s victory over Turkey, scoring a fine second goal, is attracting interest from MLS and the UK. Sporting Kansas are very keen on the St Pauli midfielder, I am told.

From Vonzinha to Tim Payne. All you TikTokers, Snapchatters and Bebo users will know a thing or two about this lot.

I am not breaking any confidences here but I watched the France v Senegal match in a pub with the great Tom Garry. We – like Darren Cann – were absolutely flabbergasted that Mbappe was not awarded a penalty having been fouled in the box. Is anyone here backing the ref? He saw plenty of replays on the monitor and someone came up with the wrong decision.

A rather shameful rating of 9 for Messi last night. A cruel blow to his ego.

It is Wednesday, so you can feast upon your weekly dose of The Knowledge.

Socceroos forward Awer Mabil on that viral video.

The reason why it went viral is because it was raw. It was not edited. It was just purely what the players wanted to say and all put together. It had an effect because individually Australians can feel and relate with it.”

Max Rushden and friends are coming in your ears with all the latest from the tournament.

Thomas Partey will not be part of the Ghana team that faces Panama, after he was denied access to Canada.

What Ghana do have is the likes of Antoine Semenyo after putting greater emphasis of attracting players from the diaspora.

Some lad called Messi is top of the Golden Boot list already. Who will hunt him down? Check out the top scorers, thus far.

Portugal open up against DR Congo as the Hors d’oeuvre for England v Croatia, not that anyone in those two countries will see it like that.

It is the sixth time Cristiano Ronaldo has been at a World Cup, which is a rather silly statistics. At 41, does he still have the powers to make a difference?

Ronaldo could wield a huge influence over the trophy’s ultimate destination. It remains to be seen whether that is channelled positively. Portugal can field arguably the best first-choice midfield in this summer’s competition, an experienced defence and an admirable array of wide forwards. At the heart of their attack stands, depending on your perspective, either a free-scoring icon primed to fire them all the way or a 41-year-old passenger whose presence sucks an otherwise fluent team into an inescapable void.

Nick Ames takes a look at the legend.

That is more than enough England material for the timing being, but do not fear, there will plenty throughout the day.

Opponents Croatia have impressed in recent times at the World Cup, reaching a final and semi-final in their past two outings. A key reason for their successes come in the form of 40-year-old Luka Modric, who is still going in the middle of the park and will be plotting England’s downfall.

Aleksandar Holiga on the the great man’s last dance.

There is plenty to get your teeth and eyes into as we prepare for England’s entrance in Dallas.

David Hytner has been listening to Harry Kane’s thoughts on the Three Lions’ chances and his own form.

I’m coming into this tournament in the best way possible; the best place physically and mentally. Throughout a career, there aren’t loads of times when all the pieces of the puzzle will come together at the right moment. Talking now, I feel like I’m in that place.

Thomas Tuchel is about to learn what managing at a major tournament is all about, writes Jacob Steinberg.

After an impressive qualifying campaign, Tuchel is backing England to thrive under the microscope in the US.

Barney Ronay on England shifting the focus from fun to business.

You can sit there playing with your silly little machines as much as you like. I’ll show you a World Cup. Close to a week in, with almost an entire round of cloudless group games in the bag, the coffin lid is starting to creak. By late Monday morning the first little knots of Three Lions shirts could be seen wandering the blank, baking streets of Dallas, blinking in the light. England are at the door. And it’s time for a vibe shift.

We should start with the latest set of results on what was a fascinating day.

Paul MacInnes was in New York/Jersey to see Mbappe lay down the first marker of the day. The Frenchman’s goals mean we will not have to spend our time discussing VAR too much but we certainly will.

The Ewan Murray witnessed Erling Haaland doing what he does best as Norway returned to the biggest stage by pummelling Iraq into submission.

Pablo Iglesias Maurer was on hand to see Lionel Messi’s 200th Argentina appearance, which he celebrated with a hat-trick against Algeria. He will be 39 next week but no one seems to have told him.

Austria required an own goal and late penalty against newcomers Jordan to get their competition up and running.