In giving the head coach another World Cup cycle, US Soccer is tempting fate for negligible benefit

Mauricio Pochettino and US Soccer enjoyed their time together.

Or, rather, they enshoyed it, as Pochettino would pronounce it in his thick Argentinian accent, which charmingly carries over when he speaks English.

The supply of soccer seems to be enormously exceeding demand. It’s made the sport feel utterly overwhelming

On Friday, the Scottish Premiership kicks off its 2026-27 season. The following Friday, the Dutch Eredivisie begins anew, and England’s Carabao Cup sets off on its ponderous journey. The various European club competitions have already begun their qualifying rounds – and did so on 7 July, in the case of the Champions and Conference Leagues. Liga MX is two rounds into its Apertura season; Major League Soccer resumed its regular season on 16 July. Other soccer is available elsewhere and at other times.

It has been only a week since the World Cup ended.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond, helmed this week by Leander in Jonathan’s absence. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a Guardian US contributor whose book on the US men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out now. You can buy it here. He teaches at Marist University.

Fifa’s gargantuan revenue influx from the tournament, with little left over for locals, will beget more exploitation

You do not, under any circumstance, have to hand it to Fifa.

You do, however, have to acknowledge that the 2026 World Cup was successful in all of the ways it was intended to be successful. The soccer was interesting and competitive and dramatic, albeit mostly not great – not that this really a necessary ingredient for a compelling sporting product. People came and watched in overwhelming numbers. There was fun and folklore; underdog surprises; heroic storylines that might have been hackneyed had they been works of fiction. The whole thing made vast sums of money for its organizer. More money, by an order of billions, than even Fifa itself had projected, per the Guardian’s reporting.