World Cup preview: England and the other favourites
The Totally Football Show with James Richardson
The Athletic
4.5 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 June 2026
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The World Cup is almost upon us so before we fly off to America it’s time for the Totally Show to discuss who might be winning the Final in mid-July.
Jimbo is joined by Duncan Alexander, Natalie Gedra and Liam Twomey in the studio to talk about who the favourites might be.
Argentina are looking to become the first team since Brazil in 1962 to successfully defend their title. Brazil themselves come into the tournament off the back of their worst qualification run ever.
Pol Ballus joins us to give the lowdown on why European Champions Spain can become World Champions for a second time, but do France have the best squad again? We hear from Tom Williams on the chances for Didier Deschamps’ men, as well as discussing how Julian Nagelsmann and Germany may get on.
FIFA have overlooked a suspension so that Ronaldo can play for Portugal, but will he actually play? And how far can his country go?
And what about the small matter of England… can Thomas Tuchel’s side end what’s now 60 years of hurt this summer?
Produced by Charlie Jones and Xavi Bird.
RUNNING ORDER:
• PART 1: Who are the World Cup favourites? (03:00)
• PART 2: England (5:30)
• PART 3: Spain with Pol Ballus (20:00)
• PART 4a: Brazil (27:00)
• PART 4b: Argentina (38:00)
• PART 5: France with Tom Williams (46:00)
• PART 6a: Rule changes? (53:00)
• PART 6b: Portugal (56:00)
• PART 6c: Germany (1:04:00)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC |
| 0:03.3 | Totally Football Show. |
| 0:12.7 | One week out from the start of the Men's World Cup, |
| 0:16.0 | we are looking at the favourites. |
| 0:17.9 | Can Goucho Marxman, Argentina, repeat. |
| 0:23.3 | France, they have Deschamps, but can they be Deschon? Spain. Can they win their first knockout game since 2010? England? How will they |
| 0:28.7 | cope with being locked up with Tommy T? Brazil? Can they end their hex-a-hex? Portugal? He's still |
| 0:33.8 | there, isn't he? Germany. What are they doing on this list? Big questions, big answers on the way in this totally football show. |
| 0:45.0 | Wednesday the 3rd of June. |
| 0:46.8 | It's World Cup minus 8, everybody, as we're joined here in the studio by Natalie Zedra of Sky Sports. |
| 0:53.4 | Hi, Gene Bo. |
| 0:54.2 | Lovely to see you, Natalie. Great to Gene Bo. Lovely to see you, Natalie. |
| 0:55.5 | Great to see you. |
| 0:56.5 | Lovely to see Lim Toomey of The Athletic. |
| 0:58.9 | Pleasure to be back. |
| 0:59.9 | Great. |
| 1:00.6 | And also, Duncan Alexander of the Athletic, how are you? |
| 1:05.6 | I am good. |
| 1:06.7 | Thank you. |
| 1:07.5 | Excellent. |
| 1:08.1 | You'll get up for six weeks of Mondo Bongo. |
| 2:23.4 | Yeah, I woke up this morning and had well-cut fever. Did you? Did you? There's no cure. There isn't. But take a daily dose of totally, because what are we going to be doing, Duncan? We are going to be doing daily broadcasts, aren't we? We're doing what? What broadcasts?s? We are doing daily. Yes. Okay, good. Yeah. Yeah, however you take your information. Yeah, the games are largely taking place in the middle of the night, UK time. So in order to be able to do this, we're having to relocate to Los Angeles, unfortunately. It's the only option, isn't that? Yeah. Yeah. So that'll be happening. Natalie, Duncan's got World Cup fever. What have you got? Oh, my God. Yes. I live with World Cup fever. You do? So, yes, I'm number one hype girl with the World Cup. Okay. And it's a big one, Humal Hexa, once again. Humal Hexa. Yeah, yeah. All right, whatever that means. But anyway, we'll talk about Brazil later on. Of course, we're going to talk about all the favorites, Liam. Who should we have in that category? Favorites. Brazil, I mean, be polite, wouldn't it? Of course. Brazil. Argentina, you have to say, after the last World Cup. I think France, Spain, after the last Euro's. They would be, I think, probably the big four for me. |
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