Welcome back to OffBallFC. What is OffBallFC, you might be asking? It’s all the best of OffBall – curating the most fun and talked about content from around the sports culture internet – but for soccer. Each week, you’ll get a newsletter from creative lead and journalist Daniel-Yaw Miller (lifelong lover/victim of Arsenal) and unique perspectives and insight from NWSL pro soccer player Madison Hammond (Man City Girl, but don’t let that frighten you). OffBallFC is capturing the conversation around the game differently – going deep on the style, music, and brands influencing the game and exclusive interviews with our favorite creators, athletes and brand builders at the very heart of it.
Wednesday was the first day with no games scheduled since the World Cup started a month ago tomorrow. I felt sad thinking about the impending emptiness in our collective days and evenings after the July 19 final. No more automatic excuses to hang with friends every day, no more daily four-match binge-watches, no more imploring the group chat to respect the lag in your stream. We’re in the business end of things now. But take this as a reminder/plea/encouragement to keep the happy vibes going even after the final whistle in two Sundays’ time. The World Cup has brought the best out of all of us regular folk*, especially considering how negative the discourse was going into the tournament. Let’s all stay friends after this is all said and done, okay?
* dubious refereeing, government interventions and FIFA politicking aside.
Let’s get to it.
Kick Off
Justin Bieber. World Cup Final Halftime Show. That’s all. Alongside Burna Boy, Shakira, Madonna and BTS? My only question is how they’re gonna fit all that into 20 minutes. Maybe they all get half a song each.
One of my favorite developments of the World Cup has been seeing my good friend Ashtyn, who you may know as the writer of the OG OffBall newsletter, becoming an honorary Brit and a superfan of England fullback Djed Spence. I had admittedly not paid much attention to him prior to this — partly because he plays for Tottenham, but Ashtyn (and the rest of the internet) have made me realize this dude is Box Office.
Speaking of Ashtyn, she put together this great academic body of work which analyzes and admires the rizziest, funniest players still standing in the tournament. It’s well worth your time, for research purposes.
Have you guys come across the TikTok beauty content girly who is a straight-up Erling Haaland doppleganger? Well, the Great Blond Viking himself came across her on his FYP after her posts started to blow up, and is now making them blow up even more by commenting on them.
Call me biased, but Arsenal players are so up right now. Not only did they win the Premier League, but all of them jetted straight off to the World Cup with heavy hangovers and have continued balling TF out in North America. Saka and Rice for England. Saliba for France. Martin Ødegaard leading the way as captain of Norway’s historic run. Mikel Merino with a trademark last-minute winner for Spain in the round of 16. (David Raya hasn’t made it off the bench yet for Spain, but I’m going to throw some love his way anyway because it’s my newsletter and I set the rules.) And let’s spare a thought for fallen Arsenal soldiers who had very respectable World Cup campaigns for Brazil: Gabriel Martinelli and Big Gabi M.
It Hasn’t Always Been Easy to Love England, But I’m All-In Right Now
Tomorrow is a huge day for me. England meets Norway in Miami for a chance to make it to the semifinals. For those who don’t know, this is the period of any major tournament for England where the entire country loses its head, letting go of all restraint, drinking pints of beer and declaring that we will finally, finally win a tournament. This period is usually swiftly followed by crushing defeat in the semis, which in turn is followed by the usual four-year cycle of soul-searching and tabloid media rage and scapegoating.
This time feels different, somehow. I love this England team. Not just for the football they play, either. This whole World Cup I have not shut up about how much joy and positivity there has been, not just from the fans or the media, but from the players themselves. The unbridled happiness coming out of so many of the 48 team camps has been just beautiful to watch. England is no exception, a nice surprise given the national team’s reputation for locker room egos, loud-mouth entourages and bickering WAGS, perpetuated by the tabloid media in the 2000s and early 2010s. It hasn’t always been easy to truly love England as a team, but this squad assembled by Thomas Tuchel (a German, no less!) couldn’t be further from that. England football has never been in a better place (well, at least since we last won something in 1966, when I imagine the vibes were pretty good, but I wasn’t around back then to witness it).
For starters, the squad is made up of players who truly represent modern England, hailing from faiths, ethnic backgrounds, and diasporic origins spanning the world. The togetherness of this squad is hard to overlook. So too are the new bromances that have sprung up out of nowhere between players who are usually rivals in club football, like the one between Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze and Aston Villa’s Ezri Konsa, who have been inseparable during the tournament. It’s like sending your kids to summer camp and seeing them come back with a whole new set of besties ahead of the next school year (I don’t have kids but I’m assuming this is what parental rituals look like).
I love that the squad’s most tenured player, Jordan Henderson, is still so passionate about winning that he managed to get both a yellow card AND a broken arm during the round of 16 classic vs. Mexico at the beginning of this week, despite not playing a single minute. I love that after that game, Declan Rice and John Stones tricked Tuchel into thinking Stones had a shoulder injury, before breaking out into dance. (His mentor-mentee relationship with rising star Morgan Rogers is also a candidate for bromance of the tournament). I’ve also loved seeing Jude Bellingham making a mockery of the pundits and keyboard warriors dumb enough to doubt him, putting in generational performances game after game, with a big smile on his face.
Admittedly, I’m a little conflicted about the game tomorrow. Only because Norway has also been one of the most (if not the most) feel-good stories of the 2026 World Cup. I’ve loved seeing the joy on Haaland’s face from the sheer knowledge that he’s at the peak of his powers, balling out on the biggest stage in all sport, making history (and great Snapchat content) alongside his brothers in arms. The very Viking-coded banging-on-the-drum and rowing celebration they do with the crowd at the end of each game never fails to get me emotional either. Speaking of bromances, this Cup’s biggest one may well be the cross-team bromance between Bellingham and Haaland, whose close friendship began during their brief overlapping stays as wonderkids-on-the-rise at Dortmund.
This is going to be one of those games where neither side really deserves to be sent home, but I guess we’re just at that phase now. It’s only broken hearts from here on out.
Whatever happens tomorrow, you can be sure of this: nothing can ever take away from the joy these two nations have brought to the world over the past few weeks.
Origin Stories: New York’s Very Own, Lilibeth Rendon
Welcome back to Origin Stories, an interview series shining a light on OffBallFC’s favorite soccer creators and tastemakers, and their relationship with the beautiful game. Today’s guest is the one and only Lilibeth, a New York native who has made a name for herself as one of the most engaging, hardest-working and fun-loving soccer analysts and content creators that the game has to offer. I first met Lilibeth up in Boston in the spring, at a France vs. Brazil friendly ahead of the World Cup, and since then have been captivated by her content. I caught up with her earlier this week to find out more about her love story with soccer, her dual passion for Ecuador and Real Madrid, her experiences covering the World Cup (attending over seven games!) and her incorrigible habit of interviewing Jude Bellingham.
DYM: Lilibeth! Let’s get right into it. How did you first fall in love with the beautiful game?
Lilibeth: I was born and raised in New York with Ecuadorian parents, so my childhood was fully immersed in Latin culture, speaking Spanish, all of that. We grew up Uptown and there were a few Ecuadorian families on the block, so whenever Ecuador played a World Cup game we’d bring the TV outside and everyone would gather round. That’s genuinely how it started. As I got older I started remembering players, hearing team names, and slowly branched out and found clubs on my own. But the love affair began with my dad and my family on that block.
Who were the early players and teams that got your interest?
Lilibeth: David Beckham, and Antonio Valencia, they both played for Man Utd so I grew up a Man Utd fan because of the two of them. One of my actual core memories is David Beckham eliminating Ecuador in 2006. I hate this guy. But he’s so good, I don’t hate this guy. That’s genuinely the internal conflict. Then La Liga started being shown in Spanish so I got into that too, found Real Madrid, and of course Beckham wanted to play for them as well. Everything’s connected, apparently.
How did you go from watching World Cups as a kid to doing this full-time?
Lilibeth: Full-time is generous, because I’m still working a full-time job on top of all this. I didn’t go to school for sports or journalism, I’ve had so many random jobs, retail, private equity, commercial real estate, but sport was always the thing. When the 2022 World Cup came round and short-form video was blowing up, I had this realization: nobody’s giving me a job just because I like soccer. Everybody likes sports. So I had to actually get out there. I started going to bars, talking to fans about what watching their country in a World Cup meant to them, covering Ecuador’s run in Qatar, which was rough. An outlet called Area Sports Network found me off the back of that and asked if I’d cover MLS in New York, the Red Bulls, NYCFC, since nobody local was doing it. I said ‘yes’ obviously. First MLS final in 2023, Copa América in ‘24, Club World Cup in 2025 following the big European teams through to Real Madrid’s exit in the semis, which hurt as a Madrid fan but was still huge for me. And even leading up to this World Cup I was terrified we wouldn’t get approved for credentials. When we did, it felt like, okay, this is actually happening. I’ve now covered around seven games of this tournament so far.
What’s been your favorite moment of this World Cup so far?
Lilibeth: Ecuador beating Germany, no contest. I went as a fan, we genuinely thought we were out, and beating Germany was absolutely incredible. I cried. We got knocked out the round after, but it didn’t matter, that game was everything. Other than that, France have been a joy to watch. I’ve caught them a few times, purely because they keep landing on the East Coast, and they’ve gone up another 10 levels since Boston. Their bench is stacked. No controversy following them, no weird calls, they just win because they’re good. It’s genuinely refreshing.
Any single moment that felt like your breakout, where you thought, “okay, I’m actually doing this?”
Lilibeth: Honestly just walking into the stadium for my first game. Every time they lay out the flags, I take a photo, just to remind myself I was there. Interview-wise, Jude Bellingham’s my favorite for sure — it’s not the first time I’ve spoken to him, but I’ve gotten lucky with him. I think because I speak English, he just hears my voice and clocks “English speaker” and relaxes a bit, I don’t know. I’m also not nervous around him anymore since we’ve done this before. That one always lands.
Do you have a favorite jersey from this World Cup?
Lilibeth: The France away kit. I need it. It reminds me of the Statue of Liberty, that green, that copper rust, I’ve seen it on fans, I’ve seen it on the players, it’s just beautiful.
So, France is winning the best jersey contest. Are they gonna go on to win the whole thing?
Lilibeth: Yeah, I do think France. And listen, I sound like a crazy friend right now because I’ve never rooted for France in my life. I was all in for Croatia in 2018, then when they played Argentina in the 2022 Final I was like, “I don’t like either of these teams,” but settled on France. And now I’m fully calling for them. They won me over. I can’t see anyone stopping them without... external help.
A big thank you to Lilibeth for joining us today, and thanks to all of you for reading along. We’ll see you next Wednesday!
Big subscriber is it coming home supporting you like your articles i need a lot of improvement i think
I’ve been saying this to my friends - this year’s tournament feels more like 2018 than anything I’ve seen before or after. Like there is a story building, where even if England don’t win it all, we’ll remember this run for the rest of our lives!
I’m thanking the boys for giving us memories we’ll never forget and moments shared with friends & strangers alike!
It’s coming home!