The report says United States players have gathered in midfield to pray after matches, with Mark McKenzie helping establish the practice. Captain Christian Pulisic is also reportedly involved in a shared Bible study known as “Bible Time”.
Those moments offer a different answer to the familiar question of what football is for. The result still matters, but prayer creates a pause in which players can express gratitude, solidarity and identity beyond the shirt they wear.
Other examples carry their own traditions. Lamine Yamal is reported to have celebrated for Spain with sujood, an Islamic act of gratitude. In Mexico, supporters reportedly placed their hopes in a baby Jesus statue dressed in national-team colours, even after defeat.
The connection between football and religion is not new. The report cites religion scholar Rebecca Alpert, who identified shared features including inherited loyalties, specialist language, ritual, record-keeping and heroic figures whose mistakes become moral lessons.
That framework fits the World Cup’s emotional geography. Supporters follow a calendar, travel in pilgrimage-like numbers and repeat routines that can feel almost liturgical. Philosophers Sean Kelly and Hubert Dreyfus have described stadiums as places where “a sacred community” can be found.
The important point is not that football creates one common religion. It creates a common stage on which different forms of belief can be seen. Christian prayer, Islamic gratitude and Catholic devotion sit alongside national pride, superstition and collective hope.
As the tournament moves towards its decisive matches, the next storyline will be whether these rituals remain private acts of comfort or become part of the World Cup’s lasting public memory.