{"id":801703,"date":"2026-07-15T11:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801703\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T11:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T11:19:08","slug":"i-root-for-underdogs-football-fans-who-dont-support-their-home-country-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801703\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I root for underdogs\u2019: football fans who don\u2019t support their home country | World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Footballers need to be born in a country or have a family tie to that place to represent them at the World Cup<\/a>, but those rules do not apply to supporters. Sometimes fans are won over by a team, a star player or even a country. Here six fans tell us why they decided not to support the country of their birth and instead root for teams with whom they have no family ties.<\/p>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know any other France fans\u2019<\/p>\n

Paul, 63, from Sheffield, started supporting France during the 1982 World Cup, when they reached the semi-finals. \u201cIt was exciting football and beautiful to watch,\u201d he says. \u201cMichel Platini, Jean Tigana, Alain Giresse \u2026 It wasn\u2019t as exciting again until 1998. I introduced my four-year-old daughter to football. We had lovely summer nights, eating snacks, cheering along and shouting: \u2018Allez Les Bleus!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know any other France fans. There have been incidents in the past, particularly during the 2004 Euros. At work everybody put a team flag on their computer. I had a France flag and everybody was laughing. France played England in an early game and England were winning 1-0 in the 90th minute, but France won 2-1. The next day, my manager took me aside and said: \u2018We\u2019re just sorting out your workstation\u2019. Someone had absolutely demolished it. I wasn\u2019t that bothered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul never regretted his choice. \u201cSince Didier Deschamps has been onboard it has been fantastic. Michael Olise is a joy<\/a> to watch. I feel a brotherhood with him. Everybody thinks you should support or play for England because you\u2019re born in England. Nope.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018That team had so much passion and grit\u2019Porus Patwari Jain supported Portugal because of his love for Manchester United and Cristiano Ronaldo. Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

Porus Patwari Jain, 31, started watching the Premier League when he was 11 years old. \u201cI\u2019m from a very small industrial town in Rajasthan,\u201d he says. \u201cThere was no football culture there, but there are many people my age who now follow football more actively.\u201d<\/p>\n

His favourite club was Manchester United, where Cristiano Ronaldo played at the time. \u201cPortugal became my chosen team in World Cups,\u201d he says. \u201cI started with Ronaldo, but stayed for Nani, Ricardo Quaresma, Pepe and Sim\u00e3o. That team had so much passion and grit. They were not a footballing powerhouse at that time, so the story of a small footballing nation fighting against all odds resonated with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portugal have since given him \u201cso many moments of distress\u201d, he says, \u201cand I wouldn\u2019t change it for anything else\u201d. The latest was their recent defeat against Spain<\/a>. \u201cRonaldo has played his last World Cup<\/a> match and I wish him all the best. Hopefully, they will give me the ultimate heartbreak someday, and end up losing on penalties in the World Cup final.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Staying up to watch was a big deal\u2019Fans in India watch Argentina v Switzerland. Photograph: Sivaram Venkitasubramanian\/NurPhoto\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Iulia, 43, who is from Romania and lives in Hungary, has supported Argentina<\/a> since she watched them play in the 1994 World Cup. She even spotted the team walking through Budapest last year. \u201cI cannot be sure Lionel Messi was among them but I like to believe so,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, a match between Argentina and Romania<\/a> kindled her love for the South American team. \u201cI was 11 and it was a big deal that my parents allowed me to stay up to watch,\u201d she says. Romania stunned Argentina in the last-16 stage, winning 3-2. Having watched Romania beat Argentina, she assumed they must now be the best team in the world.<\/p>\n

In her \u201cyoung, impressionable mind\u201d Iulia thought she was rooting for the underdog, with Romania surely on course to become a football dynasty. Romania never did become world beaters but Iulia stuck with Argentina and, 28 years after falling for them, she celebrated as they won the World Cup in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u2018The US team was never very good\u2019Rachel Fiegler in her Argentina shirt with her wife. Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

\u201cI support a few teams,\u201d says Rachel Fiegler, 38, who lives in New York. \u201cThe US team was never very good when I was growing up. I\u2019ve never felt strongly as an American as I was raised to be proud of my Cuban heritage. Cuba is more of a baseball nation. I grew up around a lot of Argentinian friends and family, so naturally became a fan of Argentina. Everyone was so passionate watching them play.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the 2010 World Cup, Rachel rooted for Uruguay. I thought they were a great team and I really liked the players,\u201d she says. \u201cI loved watching Diego God\u00edn, Luis Su\u00e1rez and all those guys. It was definitely rough to watch Uruguay at this tournament<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel does, however, support the US women\u2019s team. \u201cThey\u2019re a huge team full of passionate and talented athletes. They really care. I never got that feeling from the men\u2019s team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018What they went through resonated with me\u2019<\/p>\n

Oliver, 32, from Jersey, watched as Edin Dzeko helped the club he supports, Manchester City, win the Premier League title in 2012. The Bosnian striker\u2019s impact for City cemented Oliver\u2019s support for Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond the club link, the story of Dzeko\u2019s childhood really hit home,\u201d says Oliver. Dzeko was six years old when the siege of Sarajevo began and he was locked inside his family apartment for four years. Only when the sounds of shelling quietened was he allowed to play football with other kids from the neighbourhood. \u201cI like to root for the underdog and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any bigger underdog than a group of people who survived something so tragic,\u201d says Oliver.<\/p>\n

Oliver visited Bosnia last year. \u201cI wasn\u2019t expecting to fall in love with the place as much as I did. I adored Sarajevo. It\u2019s beautiful. It\u2019s where east meets west. You can stand in the spot where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. Being a history major, it was weirdly a bucket list destination for me.\u201d When Bosnia and Herzegovina beat Italy on penalties to qualify for the World Cup<\/a> earlier this year, Oliver was delighted. \u201cNone of my friends could understand my jubilation,\u201d he says. \u201cTo qualify for the last-32 stage was an achievement in itself, but this is only the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angi was born into a family of Brazil fans in Kolkata. Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

\u201cKolkata is a football-mad city,\u201d says Angi, 35, who spent the first 20 years of his life in India before moving to Toronto. India have never qualified for the World Cup so football fans look for other teams to support. \u201cRivalries are drawn between neighbourhoods in Kolkata \u2013 you are either Brazil<\/a> or Argentina.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angi was born into a family of Brazil fans, who watched ashen-faced as their team collapsed in the 1998 World Cup final, losing 3-0 to France. \u201cAt school the next day everybody was talking about it,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all wanted to know what happened to Ronaldo and Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Four years later, when Angi was 12, he watched as Brazil beat Germany in the World Cup final with Ronaldo scoring both goals. \u201cSmall neighbourhoods had huge Brazil flags and everybody was watching the game on small screens. Football cuts across all classes in Kolkata. Everyone is watching, dressed in unofficial Brazil tops.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angi does not believe India will play in the World Cup in his lifetime, but there is an essence of home when it comes to supporting Brazil. \u201cKolkata and adjoining cities in Bangladesh come alive during the World Cup. I may never be a Brazilian but I will always support the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Footballers need to be born in a country or have a family tie to that place to represent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":["post-801703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}