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Why I Still Watch the World Cup Even Though Ireland Never Qualify

People ask me this every four years, usually with a slight edge to it, as if there’s something inconsistent about caring deeply about football when Ireland’s not involved. My answer has changed over time, but the habit hasn’t — and sitting here in 2026 with the tournament about to start in North America, I’ve been thinking more carefully than usual about what exactly this is. There’s a good case for World Cup 2026 for Irish fans that goes beyond sentiment, but honestly, a lot of it is sentiment, and I’m not ashamed of that anymore.

Growing Up With It

My first clear World Cup memory is 1994. Ireland was there — Charlton’s Ireland, the team that made the whole country stop. I was young enough to absorb it as simply how things were: Ireland goes to the World Cup, everyone watches, everything makes sense. Then they weren’t at 1998, and I watched anyway, confused but unable to stop. France was brilliant. Zidane was something I’d never seen before. I didn’t need Ireland there to feel the pull of it.

Then 2002, and Ireland was back, and I remember exactly where I was for the Robbie Keane goal against Germany, the room erupting around me, the feeling that this was the kind of thing worth organising your life around for three weeks. Then they were gone again, and the habit remained. By the time I was old enough to analyse it honestly, I’d already been watching World Cups without Ireland for longer than I’d been watching them with Ireland. The ratio hasn’t improved since.

The 2002 Memory and What It Left Behind

That tournament deserves its own paragraph because of what it did to an entire generation of Irish football supporters. The Saipan saga. The extraordinary run through the group stage. The penalty shootout against Spain — which Ireland won and which still feels slightly unreal in retrospect. The collective derangement of the country for three weeks in June, the sense that something rare was happening and everyone knew it.

And then it ended, and it felt like something that had been on loan. We’d been allowed to experience it, but there was always a clock running. Part of why I watch every tournament since is because 2002 showed me what the thing looks like when it all aligns — the players, the moment, the country focused on a single point. That’s rare. Chasing it through someone else’s story is a pale substitute, but it keeps you close to the feeling. And close is better than nothing.

Learning to Pick a Team

I made the mistake early of watching as a pure neutral. No stake, no investment, just aesthetic appreciation. It works for about four days. Then a game ends and you feel nothing, and you realise the emotional architecture of tournament football requires you to care about outcomes, not just performances. Caring about outcomes requires committing to a team, even arbitrarily.

I’ve followed different nations for different reasons over the years. Once because a player I’d watched closely in the Premier League was the centrepiece of their squad, and I wanted to see him operate at this level. Once because a friend from that country made a compelling argument over several hours and I found myself converted before the group stage began. Once because I simply backed the underdog at each stage, which is its own form of investment — the possibility of chaos is a legitimate reason to care.

The process of choosing turns out to be part of the experience. It forces you to pay attention to the draw, to read about squads you’d otherwise ignore, to form opinions before the first game. By the time the tournament starts, you’re already in.

What North America Changes This Time

The host cities this summer are places where Irish people actually live. Not cities they might visit as tourists on a summer trip, but cities where Irish communities have been embedded for generations. New York, Los Angeles, Toronto — these places have Irish populations that are part of the fabric of the city. When games happen there, Irish people will be in the stadiums. Some of them will be cousins of people I know. Some of them will be posting videos that end up in group chats back home.

That proximity changes something subtle about the experience of watching from Ireland. It makes the tournament feel less like something happening on another planet and more like something happening in a different part of the same extended world. The time zones help too. After the absurdity of the 2022 schedule in Qatar, watching games at sensible hours again will make an actual difference to how the tournament lands over six weeks.

The Real Reason

I watch because Irish football supporters still follow the game even when it doesn’t follow us back, and the World Cup is the game at its most concentrated. The best players in the world, under the most pressure, in the highest-stakes format the sport produces. Watching that requires no qualification from me or from Ireland. It just requires showing up, which is the one thing Irish football fans have always been exceptionally good at.

The 2026 edition will be watched in Ireland. In pubs, in living rooms, on phones on public transport. The conversation will be loud and specific and occasionally heated about teams that have nothing to do with the FAI or the League of Ireland or any of the structural debates that occupy the rest of the year. For a summer, that’s enough. That’s what it’s always been.